A novel kinetic energy harvesting system for lifetime deployments of wildlife trackers
Fig 1
The Kinefox wildlife tracker concept.
We tested if a lightweight kinetic energy harvester (A), could power an alternative to batteries (B) in the form of a Lithium-Ion Capacitor (LIC). The energy from the LIC was used for low-power sensors (C), including a GPS-module and an accelerometer. Data was then compressed and sent via the low-power wide-area network Sigfox (D). Finally, the data was used to estimate how much energy the harvester generated when mounted on an animals (E).