Nanogenerator as new energy technology for self-powered intelligent transportation system

Abstract In recent years, the rapidly developed intelligent transportation system (ITS) is rendering safety and convenient life to human. However, the external power source with limited life is still a big technical bottleneck for further development of the wireless monitoring sensors in ITS. Fortunately, nanogenerator can not only harvest ambient environment energy during traffic carrier running process to power lots of arbitrarily distributed sensors of ITS, but also act as active sensor to realize self-powered wireless monitoring for ITS. This paper systematically reviews the development of nanogenerators, including piezoelectric nanogenerators and triboelectric nanogenerators, for self-powered technology in land-, water- and air-ITS, such as automobiles, trains, vessels and aircrafts, along with bridges, tunnels, highways and tracks. Meanwhile, some major achievements are summarized. Finally, perspective and remaining challenge are also discussed for further development of self-powered ITS.