Opportunistic Energy Harvesting for Submarine Wireless Sensors

This Phase II SBIR proposal is responsive to a Navy need for powering battery-free wireless sensors on submarines. The Phase I work effort that supports this proposal demonstrated that it is feasible to harvest power levels sufficiently high to power wireless sensors from perturbations in a submarine degaussing coil magnetic field. This Phase II follow-on development effort will provide core technical development to the fundamental energy harvester components, including the harvester transducer and circuitry. The development effort will be highly experimental in nature and will provide multiple iterations of hardware. This 24-month work plan concludes with an energy harvester-powered wireless sensor demonstration under simulated conditions. A 6-month Phase II Options supports research and development activities for transitioning the prototype devices into production. This phase includes a final demonstration on a degaussing coil test bed.