Self-Powered/Low Power Sensors 

By using remotely deployed sensors, the Internet of Things (IoT) has already changed our daily life in fundamental and meaningful ways. In the meanwhile, it is also forcing the world to use a new form of energy to sustainably power billions of devices/sensors. The required energy source needs to be pervasive, mobile and different from the traditional power grid. Batteries may not be the best solution for the IoT, owing to their limited lifetime, size, environmental concerns and wide range of sensor distribution. Powering the IoT would be impossible without making the sensors self-powered by harvesting energy from the working environment to ensure the long-term operation.

The realization of self-powered sensors generally has two approaches: the first approach is to develop environmental energy harvesting devices for driving the traditional sensors; the other is to develop a new category of sensor that can actively and sensitively generate electrical signals  to measure the applied stimulus from ambient environment. Our research brought TENGs into the sensor community and opened new doors to many traditional sensing applications for the future Internet of Things and Internet of Medical Things, including pulse wave measurements, sleeping monitoring, muscle motion tracking, sound recording, traffic monitoring, chemical sensing, environmental monitoring, intelligent keyboards for cyber security, and machine learning assisted wearable sensors for sign language translation to voice.