A Self-Powered Smart Wave Energy Harvester with Ratchet and Pawl for Sea-Crossing Bridges

Sea-crossing bridges need to harvest energy from the surrounding environment to solve the problem of sensor power supply. Herein, a self-powered smart wave energy harvester with ratchet and pawl for sea-crossing bridges is proposed and investigated. Self-powered system supplies energy to low-power sensors on sea-crossing bridges while simultaneously functioning as a self-sensing platform for monitoring ambient marine conditions. The proposed power take-off consists of a ratchet pawl that converts the rising and sinking motion of the float into a unidirectional continuous rotation of the generator. The generated electrical energy is stored in a capacitor to continuously power the sensor. Dry condition experiments verify the power generation performance and reliability of the system. The mechanical testing and sensing test shows that the system increased average power by 766.9% at 0.2 Hz, 22 mm with the flywheel installed. The system achieves a maximum average power of 3.6 W, a maximum output power of 15.3 W, and a maximum mechanical efficiency of 35%. The voltage data is trained by a deep learning network to achieve a classification accuracy of 99.94%. Finally, its limitations, practical applications, and potential future benefits of the system are studied.