Multi-source energy harvester for wildlife tracking

Sufficient power supply to run GPS machinery and transmit data on a long-term basis remains to be the key challenge for wildlife tracking technology. Traditional way of replacing battery periodically is not only time and money consuming but also dangerous to live-trapping wild animals. In this paper, an innovative wildlife tracking device with multi-source energy harvester with advantage of high efficiency and reliability is investigated and developed. This multi-source energy harvester entails a solar energy harvester and an innovative rotational electromagnetic energy harvester is mounted on the "wildlife tracking collar" which will remarkably extend the duration of wild life tracking. A feedforward and feedback control of DC-DC converter circuit is adopted to passively realize the Maximum Power Point Tracking (MPPT) logic for the solar energy harvester. The rotational electromagnetic energy harvester can mechanically rectify the irregular bidirectional motion into unidirectional motion has been modeled and demonstrated.