Flight Test Results of a Thermoelectric Energy Harvester for Aircraft

The idea of thermoelectric energy harvesting for low-power wireless sensor systems in aircraft and its practical implementation was recently published. The concept of using a thermoelectric generator (TEG) attached to the aircraft inner hull and a thermal storage device to create an artificial temperature gradient at the TEG during take-off and landing from the temperature changes of the fuselage has passed initial tests and is now subject to flight testing. This work presents preflight test results, e.g., vibration and temperature testing of the harvesters, the practical installation of two harvesting devices inside a test plane, and the first test flight results. Several flight cycles with different flight profiles, flight lengths, and outside temperatures have been performed. Although the influence of different flight profiles on the energy output of the harvester can be clearly observed, the results are in good agreement with expectations from numerical simulations with boundary conditions evaluated from initial climate chamber experiments. In addition, the flight test demonstrates that reliable operation of thermoelectric energy harvesting in harsh aircraft environments seems to be feasible, therefore paving the way for realization of energy-autonomous, wireless sensor networks.