Title: Fluorescent Troffer-powered Internet of Things: An Experimental Study of Electric-field Energy Harvesting,
Abstract: A totally new energy harvesting architecture that exploits ambient
electric-field (E-field) emitting from fluorescent light fixtures is presented.
A copper plate, 50 x 50 cm in size, is placed in between the ambient field to
extract energy by capacitive coupling. A low voltage prototype is designed,
structured and tested on a conventional ceiling-type 4-light fluorescent
troffer operating in 50 Hz 220 V AC power grid. It is examined that the
harvester is able to collect roughly 1.25 J of energy in 25 min when a 0.1 F of
super-capacitor is employed. The equivalent circuit and the physical model of
the proposed harvesting paradigm are provided, and the attainable power is
evaluated in both theoretical and experimental manner. The scavenged energy is
planned to be utilized for building battery-less Internet of Things (IoT)
networks that are obliged to sense environmental parameters, analyze the
gathered data, and remotely inform a higher authority within predefined
periods.