Abstract

With the ongoing advancement in sensor technologies, the development of intelligent, secure, and low-carbon vehicles will be possible in the near future. However, providing continuous power to numerous onboard sensors consumes substantial amounts of power from vehicle, resulting in the shortened running times. Herein, a self-powered noncontact triboelectric nanogenerator (SNC-TENG) with ultralong-distance detection and a high sensitivity is proposed, which can be used as ambient perception sensors for smart vehicles. The SNC-TENG is constructed from a MXene/silicone nanocomposite with a fully embedded conductive sponge, which significantly enriches the tribo-charges and leads to an excellent capability and performance. This SNC-TENG is capable of perceiving human activity from a distance of 2 m. To the best of authors knowledge, the perceiving distance per unit area of this SNC-TENG is the highest among previously reported non-contact TENGs. Furthermore, the applicability of the SNC-TENG is explored for vehicle sentry mode and blind spot detection for the first time. The use of this technology in a real vehicle demonstrates its feasibility for use in practical applications. Overall, this study provides a new design scheme for contactless self-powered sensors, and the presented SNC-TENG is expected to be applicable in various fields where non-contact sensing is required.