Development and performance analysis of an energy-autonomous VHF-beacon for animal-tracking
Conference: MikroSystemTechnik 2017 - Kongress
10/23/2017 - 10/25/2017 at München, Deutschland
Proceedings: MikroSystemTechnik 2017
Pages: 4Language: englishTyp: PDF
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Authors:
Baeumker, Eiko; Schuele, Florian; Woias, Peter (University of Freiburg, Department of Microsystems Engineering (IMTEK), Laboratory for the Design of the Microsys-tems, Georges-Koehler-Allee 102, 79110 Freiburg, Germany)
Abstract:
In this paper we present a prototype of a VHF-beacon for animals that is fully energy-autonomous and does not need any battery. To achieve this, thermal energy was harvested directly from the temperature difference between the animal and the environment. The system consists of a small thermoelectric generator (TEG), a special ultra-low voltage converter, a comparator with hysteresis for power management, and a single-stage transmitter. The performance of the device was determined in a field test, where it was attached to a sheep. An average temperature difference of (0.6 ±0.3) K directly measured at the TEG was found. This resulted in an active system, sending VHF-pulses of 20 ms, in over 74 % of the time.