Journal of Marine Science: Research & Development
Open Access

Abstract

Underwater acoustic communication in shallow/deep water is a new developing area of research. Various systems used for underwater applications such as disaster warning tsunami buoy systems, underwater sensor networks, underwater seismic observing systems, Autonomous Underwater Vehicle for natural mineral extractions, manned submersible vehicles (under research on implementation), acoustic signal processing submersibles used for defense purposes, etc., requires major power for operation. In general batteries are used to power the systems. In this paper an energy harvesting system for low power devices are proposed. This harvesting system uses marine sediments (available in shallow/deep water) Microbial Fuel Cell as a source for power generation. The system consists of marine sediment Microbial Fuel Cell (MFC) and a power management system. The voltage developed by the MFC is less than 0.7 V. So, a power management system is used between the MFC and the load to power the electronic devices in ocean water. The voltage stored in a super capacitor is transferred to the Interleaved Boost Converter which boosts the voltage of 1.4 V to 6.8 V which is the requirement of the load. Thus the design of a new underwater energy harvesting system provides relentless and justifiable power supply for remote underwater sensing, surveillance devices including data collections. Simulation results of energy harvesting system are carried out using Linear Technology (LT) spice.

Biography

S Sakthivel Murugan is an Associate Professor in the Department of Electronics and Communication Engineering at SSN College of Engineering, Chennai India since 2001. His area of research is underwater acoustic signal processing and underwater wireless sensor network. He has developed an underwater acoustic research lab and has published his work extensively in more than 13 reputed high index journals and 33 international and national conferences. He is a life Member of the Ocean Society of India.

Email: sakthivels@ssn.edu.in