Energy harvesting curriculum developed and offered at the Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT)

This paper presents the curriculum development to satisfy the needs in teaching energy harvesting and renewable energy systems. In order to restructure the energy industry through energy harvesting from renewable sources instead of fossil fuels, energy industry will require young and talented minds in very close future. The offered course in the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department at the Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT) allows the students not only apply their previous knowledge of power electronics, control systems, system analysis, and system design to this new field, but also provides them with experience of new methods and trends in various scales of energy harvesting applications. Many harvesting techniques such as solar, ocean wave-tide-thermal, vibration, linear motion, passive and active human power generation methods are taught in the class. Their operational principles are addressed. Research, simulation, or experiment based projects with emphasis on power electronic interfaces for energy harvesting applications are assigned to student groups. Descriptions of course topics and interesting concepts are given in details with the provided results from the students projects.