Water‐Wave Driven Route Avoidance Warning System for Wireless Ocean Navigation

TLDR

The Internet of Things is vital for ocean applications, and ships must avoid islands and reefs in adverse weather to ensure safe navigation. The study proposes a hybrid wave‑energy harvesting nanogenerator (HW‑NG) to power a self‑powered route‑avoidance warning system for long‑distance wireless ocean navigation. HW‑NG integrates a triboelectric nanogenerator and an electromagnetic generator within a pendulum‑based, spring‑assisted multilayered structure, enabling self‑powered long‑distance communication. The HW‑NG establishes 1.5 km communication nodes, supports a network of hundreds of thousands of units that can transmit forewarning signals every second, and emits wireless alerts spontaneously via an automatic switch, demonstrating a practicable safety strategy for sea transportation.

Abstract

Abstract The internet of things in the context of the ocean is vitally important. For ships sailing on the wide ocean in adverse weather conditions, evasion of marine islands and reefs is crucial to ensure safe navigation. Here, a hybrid wave energy harvesting nanogenerator is proposed (HW‐NG) as a power source for long‐distance wireless transmission, and demonstrated a self‐powered route avoidance warning system for ocean navigation. The HW‐NG is developed based on a triboelectric nanogenerator (TENG) and an electromagnetic generator (EMG), integrated by a pendulum structure. The TENG based on a contact‐separation mode is designed into a spring‐assisted multilayered structure, in which the EMG unit is well hybridized. Simply relying on the energy extracted from water waves, the HW‐NG can establish long‐distance (1.5 km) communication nodes on the sea. In application, a large HW‐NG network could be developed in the adjacent water areas of islands or reefs. With a network formed by hundreds of thousands of HW‐NGs, the forewarning signal transmission could be realized per second on the sea. More importantly, the wireless emitting is spontaneous through the designed automatic switch module. This work demonstrates a practicable strategy for ensuring safety of sea transportation based on wave energy collection.