Energy harvesting to supply moored oceanographic monitoring stations

This work aims to study a new energy harvesting device to be anchored on the ocean floor and convert any type of currents, tides or oscillation movement into electrical energy using linear electromagnetic generators. The final application is to supply energy to a set of moored monitoring sensors that collects data and allowing the system to be energetically autonomous. The proposed setup is a spherical buoy with no external moving parts, to be more biofouling proof. The maximum output power measured for a 4 Hz movement was 9.9 mW with only one linear electromagnetic generator.Programa Operacional Regional do Norte (NORTE), through Fundo Europeu de Desenvolvimento Regional (FEDER) [NORTE-01-0145-FEDER-000032]FCT [UID/EEA/04436/2013