Embedded self-powered sensing systems for smart vehicles and intelligent transportation

With the current changes in the automotive industry, vehicles need more and more advanced sensors for control, safety, monitoring, perception, and operation. With the current technological advancements, our cars are becoming more computers on wheels. There are more than one hundred sensors in a vehicle that many of them have the potential to be replaced with nanogenerators (NGs)-based self-powered sensors. In this article, we aim to investigate and propose self-powered sensors for different sensing applications in vehicles. Furthermore, we discuss how leveraging nanogenerators can be beneficial in bolstering intelligent transportation systems. Several conceptual ideas and designs for self-powered sensors in automotive-related systems are presented and discussed based on the current status of research in this area. The importance of self-powered sensors in vehicles are further elaborated and the energy harvesting potential of nanogenerators are shown for a few vehicle systems. Challenges, design concerns and the future impacts of self-powered sensing in automotive and traffic monitoring systems are fully discussed. It is delineated how the application of nanogenerators could accelerate the realization of fully smart vehicles and intelligent transportation.