A rotating machine acoustic emission monitoring system powered by multi-source energy harvester

Abstract

This working paper introduces a multi-source energy harvesting powered acoustic emissions (AE) monitoring system for the applications of rotating machine fault detections. This wireless sensor prototype records the AE signal at approximately 200KHz frequency. It performs fast Fourier transform (FFT) and compares the results with known fault patterns. An energy harvesting solution utilizes vibrational, thermal and light energy as the power supply for the AE wireless sensor node. The multiple-source energy harvester proposed in this work generates 1.56mW from 25--48mg vibration energy and 3.37mW from thermoelectric energy when deployed on the 62°C metal surface of air compressor. This AE wireless sensor prototype combines with the batteryless energy harvesting power supply in order to provide a self-powered health monitoring solution for wide range of rotating machinery.