Mapping Energy Harvesting Technologies to Aircraft Landing Gear Sensor Power Needs

Abstract

This study examines the feasibility of integrating energy-harvesting, wireless harvesting and wireless sensor systems within the landing gear of Cessna Citation Jet (Model 525). The landing gear environment is characterised by broadband vibration during taxiing, high rotational energy during ground roll and significant thermal dissipation during braking. Harvesting mechanisms like (1) piezoelectric vibration harvesting, (2) rotational harvesting from wheel motion, and (3) thermoelectric harvesting from brake heat-are evaluated using aircraft maintenance manual data combined with time-domain simulations. Harvested power profiles are integrated over taxi, take-off, and landing phases to estimate available electrical energy. The results are mapped to non-essential onboard sensing and monitoring applications. The analysis identifies non-safety-critical monitoring functions as the most viable candidates for early energy harvesting-enabled wireless deployment. The proposed framework provides a quantitative basis for the integration of energy harvesting at the subsystem level within future aircraft architectures as well as the ability to retrofit them to current used architecture