Self-Powered ZigBee Wireless Sensor Nodes for Railway Condition Monitoring

Abstract

A track-borne energy transducer is a smart device for harvesting energy of trains or rail transportation systems. In this paper, the authors extend this application through introducing a self-powered ZigBee wireless sensor node. The proposed hardware prototype consists of a ZigBee coordinator at road-side and a series of sensors (Accelerometer, temperature sensor, humidity sensor, and infrared detector) connected to a ZigBee end device at rail-side. The ZigBee end device is powered by the magnetic levitation energy harvester and communicated wirelessly with the ZigBee coordinator. The magnetic levitation oscillator is selected due to its broad-band response characteristics. The results indicate a peak–peak output voltage of 2.3 V under the condition that the vehicle travels over the rail-borne device at the speed of 105 km/h.