Available Technologies and Commercial Devices to Harvest Energy by Human Trampling in Smart Flooring Systems: a Review

Technological innovation has increased the global demand for electrical power and energy. Accordingly, energy harvesting has become a research area of primary interest for the scientific community and companies because it constitutes a sustainable way to collect energy from various sources. In particular, kinetic energy generated from human walking or vehicle movements on smart energy floors represents a promising research topic. This paper aims to analyze the state-of-art of smart energy harvesting floors to determine the best solution to feed a lighting system and charging columns. In particular, the fundamentals of the main harvesting mechanisms applicable in this field (i.e., piezoelectric, electromagnetic, triboelectric, and relative hybrids) are discussed. Moreover, an overview of scientific works related to energy harvesting floors is presented, focusing on the architectures of the developed tiles, the transduction mechanism, and the output performances. Finally, a survey of the commercial energy harvesting floors proposed by companies and startups is reported. From the carried-out analysis, we concluded that the piezoelectric transduction mechanism represents the optimal solution for designing smart energy floors, given their compactness, high efficiency, and absence of moving parts

An overview of technologies and devices against COVID-19 pandemic diffusion: virus detection and monitoring solutions

none5siThe year 2020 will remain in the history for the diffusion of the COVID-19 virus, originating a pandemic on a world scale with over a million deaths. From the onset of the pandemic, the scientific community has made numerous efforts to design systems to detect the infected subjects in ever-faster times, allowing both to intervene on them, to avoid dangerous complications, and to contain the pandemic spreading. In this paper, we present an overview of different innovative technologies and devices fielded against the SARS-CoV-2 virus. The various technologies applicable to the rapid and reliable detection of the COVID-19 virus have been explored. Specifically, several magnetic, electrochemical, and plasmonic biosensors have been proposed in the scientific literature, as an alternative to nucleic acid-based real-time reverse transcription Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) (RT-qPCR) assays, overcoming the limitations featuring this typology of tests (the need for expensive instruments and reagents, as well as of specialized staff, and their reliability). Furthermore, we investigated the IoT solutions and devices, reported on the market and in the scientific literature, to contain the pandemic spreading, by avoiding the contagion, acquiring the parameters of suspected users, and monitoring them during the quarantine period.openR. de Fazio, A. Sponziello, D. Cafagna, R. Velazquez, P. Viscontide Fazio, R.; Sponziello, A.; Cafagna, D.; Velazquez, R.; Visconti, P

A Solar-Powered Fertigation System based on Low-Cost Wireless Sensor Network Remotely Controlled by Farmer for Irrigation Cycles and Crops Growth Optimization

Nowadays, the technological innovations affect all human activities; also the agriculture field heavily benefits of technologies as informatics, electronic, telecommunication, allowing huge improvements of productivity and resources exploitation. This manuscript presents an innovative low cost fertigation system for assisting the cultures by using data-processing electronic boards and wireless sensors network (WSN) connected to a remote software platform. The proposed system receives information related to air and soil parameters, by a custom solar-powered WSN. A control unit elaborates the acquired data by using dynamic agronomic models implemented on a cloud platform, for optimizing the amount and typology of fertilizers as well as the irrigations frequency, as function also of weather forecasts got by on-line weather service

Energy harvesting technologies and devices from vehicular transit and natural sources on roads for a sustainable transport: state-of-the-art analysis and commercial solutions

The roads we travel daily are exposed to several energy sources (mechanical load, solar radiation, heat, air movement, etc.), which can be exploited to make common systems and apparatus for roadways (i.e., lighting, video surveillance, and traffic monitoring systems) energetically autonomous. For decades, research groups have developed many technologies able to scavenge energy from the said sources related to roadways: electromagnetism, piezoelectric and triboelectric harvesters for the cars’ stress and vibrations, photovoltaic modules for sunlight, thermoelectric solutions and pyroelectric materials for heat and wind turbines optimized for low-speed winds, such as the ones produced by moving vehicles. Thus, this paper explores the existing technologies for scavenging energy from sources available on roadways, both natural and related to vehicular transit. At first, to contextualize them within the application scenario, the available energy sources and transduction mechanisms were identified and described, arguing the main requirements that must be considered for developing harvesters applicable on roadways. Afterward, an overview of energy harvesting solutions presented in the scientific literature to recover energy from roadways is introduced, classifying them according to the transduction method (i.e., piezoelectric, triboelectric, electromagnetic, photovoltaic, etc.) and proposed system architecture. Later, a survey of commercial systems available on the market for scavenging energy from roadways is introduced, focusing on their architecture, performance, and installation methods. Lastly, comparative analyses are offered for each device category (i.e., scientific works and commercial products), providing insights to identify the most promising solutions and technologies for developing future self-sustainable smart roads

Time dependence of the e^- flux measured by PAMELA during the July 2006 - December 2009 solar minimum

Precision measurements of the electron component in the cosmic radiation provide important information about the origin and propagation of cosmic rays in the Galaxy not accessible from the study of the cosmic-ray nuclear components due to their differing diffusion and energy-loss processes. However, when measured near Earth, the effects of propagation and modulation of galactic cosmic rays in the heliosphere, particularly significant for energies up to at least 30 GeV, must be properly taken into account. In this paper the electron (e^-) spectra measured by PAMELA down to 70 MeV from July 2006 to December 2009 over six-months time intervals are presented. Fluxes are compared with a state-of-the-art three-dimensional model of solar modulation that reproduces the observations remarkably well.Comment: 40 pages, 18 figures, 1 tabl

Search for anisotropies in cosmic-ray positrons detected by the PAMELA experiment

The PAMELA detector was launched on board of the Russian Resurs-DK1 satellite on June 15, 2006. Data collected during the first four years have been used to search for large-scale anisotropies in the arrival directions of cosmic-ray positrons. The PAMELA experiment allows for a full sky investigation, with sensitivity to global anisotropies in any angular window of the celestial sphere. Data samples of positrons in the rigidity range 10 GV $\leq$ R $\leq$ 200 GV were analyzed. This article discusses the method and the results of the search for possible local sources through analysis of anisotropy in positron data compared to the proton background. The resulting distributions of arrival directions are found to be isotropic. Starting from the angular power spectrum, a dipole anisotropy upper limit \delta = 0.166 at 95% C.L. is determined. Additional search is carried out around the Sun. No evidence of an excess correlated with that direction was found.Comment: The value of the dipole anisotropy upper limit has been changed. The method is correct but there was a miscalculation in the relative formul

Geomagnetically trapped, albedo and solar energetic particles: trajectory analysis and flux reconstruction with PAMELA

The PAMELA satellite experiment is providing comprehensive observations of the interplanetary and magnetospheric radiation in the near-Earth environment. Thanks to its identification capabilities and the semi-polar orbit, PAMELA is able to precisely measure the energetic spectra and the angular distributions of the different cosmic-ray populations over a wide latitude region, including geomagnetically trapped and albedo particles. Its observations comprise the solar energetic particle events between solar cycles 23 and 24, and the geomagnetic cutoff variations during magnetospheric storms. PAMELA's measurements are supported by an accurate analysis of particle trajectories in the Earth's magnetosphere based on a realistic geomagnetic field modeling, which allows the classification of particle populations of different origin and the investigation of the asymptotic directions of arrival.Comment: Accepted for publication in Advances in Space Research, 2016. 21 pages, 7 figure

Measurement of boron and carbon fluxes in cosmic rays with the PAMELA experiment

The propagation of cosmic rays inside our galaxy plays a fundamental role in shaping their injection spectra into those observed at Earth. One of the best tools to investigate this issue is the ratio of fluxes for secondary and primary species. The boron-to-carbon (B/C) ratio, in particular, is a sensitive probe to investigate propagation mechanisms. This paper presents new measurements of the absolute fluxes of boron and carbon nuclei, as well as the B/C ratio, from the PAMELA space experiment. The results span the range 0.44 - 129 GeV/n in kinetic energy for data taken in the period July 2006 - March 2008

Trapped proton fluxes at low Earth orbits measured by the PAMELA experiment

We report an accurate measurement of the geomagnetically trapped proton fluxes for kinetic energy above > 70 MeV performed by the PAMELA mission at low Earth orbits (350-610 km). Data were analyzed in the frame of the adiabatic theory of charged particle motion in the geomagnetic field. Flux properties were investigated in detail, providing a full characterization of the particle radiation in the South Atlantic Anomaly region, including locations, energy spectra and pitch angle distributions. PAMELA results significantly improve the description of the Earth's radiation environment at low altitudes placing important constraints on the trapping and interaction processes, and can be used to validate current trapped particle radiation models.Comment: 22 pages, 5 figure

PAMELA's measurements of geomagnetic cutoff variations during solar energetic particle events

Data from the PAMELA satellite experiment were used to measure the geomagnetic cutoff for high-energy ($\gtrsim$ 80 MeV) protons during the solar particle events on 2006 December 13 and 14. The variations of the cutoff latitude as a function of rigidity were studied on relatively short timescales, corresponding to single spacecraft orbits (about 94 minutes). Estimated cutoff values were cross-checked with those obtained by means of a trajectory tracing approach based on dynamical empirical modeling of the Earth's magnetosphere. We find significant variations in the cutoff latitude, with a maximum suppression of about 6 deg for $\sim$80 MeV protons during the main phase of the storm. The observed reduction in the geomagnetic shielding and its temporal evolution were compared with the changes in the magnetosphere configuration, investigating the role of IMF, solar wind and geomagnetic (Kp, Dst and Sym-H indexes) variables and their correlation with PAMELA cutoff results.Comment: Conference: The 34th International Cosmic Ray Conference (ICRC2015), 30 July - 6 August, 2015, The Hague, The Netherlands, Volume: PoS(ICRC2015)28