TENG Applications in Transportation and Surrounding Emergency Management

Abstract With the rapid development of transportation technology, people's lives are becoming more and more convenient, but the popularity of high speed transportation also increases the probability of emergencies. Therefore, it is necessary to conduct real‐time and accurate monitoring on transportation conditions to reduce the occurrence of emergencies. For possibly emergencies in other circumstances (e.g., meteorological disasters, geological disasters, and maritime disasters), emergency management is also critical to ensure the security of people and property. Prediction and early‐warning can help to detect abnormal situations and take measures, prior to potential risks. The basis of real‐time and effective transportation monitoring and emergency management requires a continuous and stable power supply for randomly distributed sensors and actuators. Triboelectric nanogenerators (TENGs) have been extensively investigated in different transportation circumstances to harvest the surrounding energy and drive distributed sensors for self‐powered wireless monitoring. This article surveys the research progress in TENGs in road transportation, bridge transportation, railway transportation, and maritime transportation, and related surrounding emergency management. Representative applications and the main achievements are summarized for these different application scenarios. A perspective on TENG research is given, and the remaining challenges facing TENGs in transportation and emergency management are discussed, along with potential solutions.