Regulating the high-voltage and high-impedance characteristics of triboelectric nanogenerator toward practical self-powered sensors

In recent years, triboelectric nanogenerator (TENG), as a sensor with promising future, is expected to be widely used in many fields. However, the output of TENG has the characteristics of high voltage (> 10–100 V) and high impedance (in MΩ–GΩ), which hinder the TENG’s applications in sensor with considering the operation voltage of conventional electronic components. In this work, two front-end voltage signal processing circuit schemes are proposed, which can convert the high-impedance and high-voltage signal output from TENG into a low-voltage and low-impedance signal. First, we analyzed the circuit model by measuring the output voltage of the TENG sensor and explained the influence of the input impedance of the measuring device on the measurement accuracy. Then, we proposed two kinds of linear voltage signal processing methods which have been demonstrated the feasibility for a contact-separation mode TENG and a rotating type TENG. Finally, we applied the designed front-end signal processing circuit to a portable measurement system, which can measure the voltage signal up to 100 V output from a sliding mode TENG for local display or transmission to receiving terminal wirelessly. These two front-end voltage signal processing circuit solutions have the advantages of structure simplicities and cost-efficiency, and they can be used in combination with common electronic systems. The method can help with various practical TENG-based sensor applications and also provides an economical and simple solution for TENG voltage measurement.