ABSTRACT
With the development of 5G technology and the increase in computing power, the era of the Internet of Things (IoT) is coming. The digital twins, analyzing massive sensor data with the help of artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms and software architectures, serve as a bridge between the physical and the virtual worlds, benefitting for optimizing production processes, improving conversion efficiency, reducing failure rates, shortening development cycles, and opening up new business opportunities. To build digital twins from the physical world, the first and crucial step is collecting the information of the physical entities. Digital twin–based system requires various sensors to detect the changes on the physical targets. Although there are numerous widely used sensors, including strain gauges, cameras, ultrasonic distance sensors, etc., the huge energy consumption and power matching issues in sensor networks are still an urgent problem to be solved. Triboelectric nanogenerators (TENGs) that convert the changes in the physical world into electrical signals act as self-powered sensors. This kind of sensors, performing as a solution of battery replacement, helps to realize low energy consuming and sustainable digital twin system contribute a lot in smart manufacturing, smart city, smart transportation, smart health, and other relative fields. Herein, this chapter introduces the mechanism of common TENGs, the diverse scenarios of TENGs in digital twin applications. Besides, the future application potential of TENGs in digital twin is also discussed here.
