3D-Printed Triboelectric Nanogenerators for Animal Tracking

Date

2026-6-29

Author

Bayram, Barkın

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Animal tracking collars have become indispensable tools across applications ranging from pet safety to wildlife conservation and precision livestock farming. Despite their widespread use, all existing tracking systems depend on batteries, making their operational lifetime inherently limited by finite energy storage capacity. Two major inefficiencies characterize commercial collars: the continuous power consumption of battery-powered motion sensors and the periodic activation of GPS modules, which results in unnecessary position updates during periods of inactivity. In this study, a 3D-printed triboelectric nanogenerator (TENG) integrated tracking collar is proposed to simultaneously address both challenges. The collar was fabricated using fused deposition modeling (FDM) with polylactic acid (PLA) serving as the tribopositive material and polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) marbles acting as tribonegative counterparts operating in the free-standing mode. Single-unit optimization was performed by varying the tribopositive material, the number of marbles, electrode spacing, and the bottom layer thickness. The optimized four-unit configuration yielded an open circuit voltage of approximately 110 V and a short-circuit current of 0.8 µA at a frequency of 2 Hz, together with a power density of 25 µW/cm³ at an impedance-matched load of 400 MΩ. Field tests conducted on a dog demonstrated that the TENG generated signals were sufficient for accurate activity recognition. Using a bagged decision-tree ensemble classifier based on extracted time and frequency domain features, slow walking, searching, and running behaviors were recognized with an accuracy of 94.8%. A voltage threshold triggered GPS duty-cycling scheme was implemented, whereby the capacitor is charged by the triboelectric output and the GPS is activated only when the animal's motion is detected rather than on a fixed timer. By avoiding unnecessary positioning during inactivity, this motion-triggered duty-cycling scheme is expected to extend the battery lifetime from 35 hours to approximately 180 days at a representative daily activity level.

Subject Keywords

Triboelectric nanogenerators, Animal tracking, FDM 3D printing, Self-powered sensing, Motion-triggered GPS

URI

https://hdl.handle.net/11511/119938

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Graduate School of Natural and Applied Sciences, Thesis