All-in-one self-powered wind speed sensor with a wide start-up range and high output power

Anemometers play an important role in environmental monitoring in remote and unique locations, such as forests, islands, and mines. Self-powered wind speed sensors offer a solution for long-term reliable monitoring in unmanned environments. However, current self-powered wind speed sensors suffer from limited integration, limited start-up range, and insufficient output power. Therefore, an all-in-one self-powered wind speed sensor (ASWS-sensor) with a wide start-up range and high output power is proposed. The ASWS-sensor, based on triboelectric nanogenerator and electromagnetic generation technologies, features a unique dual-cup structure that integrates wind speed sensing and wind energy harvesting. This design enables wind speed detection across a broad range from 1.5 to 15 m/s and achieves a high output power of 1.18 W. To meet the long-term, reliable wind speed monitoring needs in coal mine tunnels, a real-time wind speed monitoring and alarm system is developed combining the ASWS-sensor and a master computer. Notably, in this system, the use of the FIR filtering algorithm effectively suppresses significant noise encountered during the collection of single-electrode triboelectric signals with a microcontroller, thereby simplifying the wind speed calculation process. The results show that when the wind speed exceeds 7 m/s, the system can collect, process, wirelessly transmit, analyze, and display wind speed-related data without the need for an external power supply. This demonstrates the excellent application potential of the ASWS-sensor in unmanned monitoring in remote and unique scenarios.