// Code Glimpse

Vibrational Energy Harvesting With Iot Devices

Introduction

In an era where energy conservation is critical, being able to generate power through obscure sources can be a game changer. Vibrational energy harvesting (VEH) is one such field that relies on vibrations in the environment to generate electricity. Noticed how your phone vibrates when it receives a notification? VEH taps into vibrations sources like this, powering Internet of Things (IoT) devices.

In this blog post, we will be exploring how to use a Microelectromechanical System (MEMS) generator in combination with the famous single board computer Raspberry Pi and Python to develop a simple IoT based vibrational energy harvester.

Basics of MEMS Energy Harvesters

Microelectromechanical Systems (MEMS) are miniature devices with both mechanical and electrical components. MEMS energy harvesters convert mechanical vibrations into an electrical charge. We will be using a standard off-the-shelf MEMS energy harvester.

Hardware Requirements

  1. Raspberry Pi (any model with GPIO input)
  2. MEMS Vibrational Energy Harvester
  3. A GPIO breakout kit (optional but recommended for safety)

Setting up the Raspberry Pi

First, connect your MEMS harvester to the Raspberry Pi GPIO. Then install all necessary Python libraries. I'm using an Ubuntu based Raspberry Pi, so the package manager I use is apt, you may have to replace it accordingly based on the OS you are using.

sudo apt update
sudo apt install python3-pip python3-dev
pip3 install RPi.GPIO

This code updates your system and installs required Python dependencies.

Writing Code for Harvesting Vibrational Energy

With hardware set up, let's write a simple Python snippet that will harvest energy from vibrations and print simple logs.

import RPi.GPIO as GPIO
import time

# MEMS energy harvester connected to GPIO 17
channel = 17

# GPIO setup
GPIO.setmode(GPIO.BCM)
GPIO.setup(channel, GPIO.IN)

def callback(channel):
    if GPIO.input(channel):
        print("Vibrational Energy Detected!")

GPIO.add_event_detect(channel, GPIO.BOTH, bouncetime=300) 
GPIO.add_event_callback(channel, callback) 

while True:
    time.sleep(1)

This code configures our Raspberry Pi to detect mechanical vibrations. Whenever a vibration is detected, it prints a simple log.

Conclusion

Energy harvesting technologies like MEMS provide opportunities to power IoT devices in innovative ways and work towards sustainable tech applications. While this DIY-IoT project is basic, it opens up lots of potential to explore and enhance to a fully functional energy harvesting system that could power small Internet of Things (IoT) devices, through something as simple as vibrations.