PhD in Energy Harvesting
22 August 2014
PhD studentship to research Energy Harvesting.
MR ELIJAH IYANUOLUWA ADEGOKE who acheived his masters at Loughborough University and his Undergraduate degree at Covenant University, Nigeria has been succesful in his application for this fully funded scholarship.
The High Speed Sustainable Manufacturing Institute will sponsor a PhD in Electronic Engineering - Energy Harvesting. The research will be mainly focused on three main areas: 1) the characterisation, modelling and measuring of available and generated ambient energy in the manufacturing, facility management and rail industry environments such as vibration, electromagnetic fields, inductive fields, temperature gradients, light or pressure changes, 2) Development of a measurement prototype, which is able to characterise ambient energy and 3) prototype development of an adaptable power converter, which can use different power sources and supply a mobile device.
Project background
HSSMI is a joint initiative between Ford Motor Company, Loughborough University and the Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG). HSSMI is located in Centre for Engineering and Manufacturing Excellence (CEME) site in East London.
The Institute brings together academic institutions, large multi-national manufacturers a nd their supply chain partners to create a multi-industry collaboration for the implementation of high-value, high-volume manufacturing systems.
HSSMI works together with industry in the development of wireless sensors, in particular in the Waste and Energy theme, to measure machine parameters, energy consumption, environmental data or production data. Mostly these sensors use batteries, which need to be replaced after a specific time. Although low-power designs can increase the battery life to up to 3 to 5 years, large number of potentially supplied sensor makes the deployment unfavourable for companies.
Various energy harvesters exist on the market, such as for the conversion of a) Electromagnetic power, b) light, c) vibration, d) temperature gradients, e) pressure changes or f) magnetic fields. These energy harvesters could be used to replace batteries for mobile devices and would overcome the problem of limited battery life time.
Research challenge
Although the different energy harvesters exist, there is a challenge for the end user in decision making of the following points:
- Difficulty to judge what energy harvester can be used for the given application
- Difficulty to judge whether sufficient ambient energy is available in the given environment
- No designs / components exist to combine multiple energy sources to supply a mobile device with energy.
Work packages
The PhD thesis will be divided into 5 main work packages.
- Literature review and gap analysis of current research. The outcome of the literature review should be a detailed description of the current academic research landscape and existing gaps.
- Characterisation, modelling and measuring of available and generated ambient energy in the manufacturing, facility management and rail industry environments such as vibration, electromagnetic fields, inductive fields, temperature gradients, light or pressure changes. This work package will be partly theoretical including the analysis of industrial environments and modelling of these.
- The experimental part will contain the development of a mobile measurement prototype which will enable the PhD student to measure environments and compare the results with the theoretical modelling. Main deliverable will be the development of a measurement prototype, which is able to characterise ambient energy.
- Prototype development of an adaptable power converter, which can use different power sources and supply a mobile device. This work package will concentrate on the electronic development of an adaptive power supply, which is capable of flexibly using different energy harvesting modules depending on the operating environment.