Energy harvesting from bearings rotation in a seeding agriculture machine

Energy harvesting is one of the emerging sustainable and innovative solutions for supplying energy to remote sensors for the IoT world. This process is going on also in the agricultural sector where the need to monitor machines devoted to farming and other agricultural activities is growing. In particular, it addresses the energy needs of agriculture while minimizing its ecological impact. In this work, the energy harvesting technology is exploited to remotely monitor the performances of seeding disk bearings. Specifically, an harvester that collects the rotating kinetic energy of seeding disks is designed to detect if they are properly working. When the seeding disks are rotating, electric power is generated and a signal is sent ensuring everything is in order. However, in the event of a malfunction, no electrical power is produced, leading to the activation of a warning on the main board which notifies about the malfunctioning of a seeding disk. The design of the harvester is based on an axial flux generator topology and it is developed by performing evaluations on the reaction torque to counteract the magnetic attractive force and on the electromotive force which can be harvested in order to send the signal. By developing and implementing this energy harvesting technology for remote monitoring, this work aims to improve the efficiency and reliability of agricultural machines, ultimately contributing to increased productivity and reduced downtime in farming operations.