Kinetic energy harvesting technologies for applications in land transportation: A comprehensive review

Abstract The development of land transportation has effectively contributed to countries’ economic and social development. Roads, rails and vehicles have come into widespread use in transporting things from one location to another on land. However, much energy is dissipated in traditional land transportation, and this energy is worthy of being recovered. Many researchers in recent decades have presented different types of energy harvesting systems to harness this dissipated energy. Regenerative energy harvesting systems can convert dissipated energy into electricity for different applications. This paper is a comprehensive review of energy harvesting technologies for different applications in the land transportation. First, the commonly used energy harvesting technologies in land transportation are summarized. Second, different energy harvesting systems are presented in terms of designs, simulations, and experiments. Third, a common analysis of energy harvesting technologies is conducted to calculate and simulate the performance of these systems. Also, a comparison of the presented energy harvesting systems is conducted in various ways. Then different applications and energy utilizations of the energy harvesting systems are summarized. Moreover, research gaps and technical difficulties that remain unresolved are discussed, and some recommendations are made, which aim to be helpful for further research.