Energy Harvesting from Vibrations using Piezoelectric Material via Voltage Compensation in the Syncronized Switch Inductor and Usage of the Tapered Cantilever Beam

Background: Battery powered devices become ubiquitous in modern applications. However they require frequent replenishment of the energy source. By utilizing energy harvesting hardware the batteries life time can be extended minimizing maintenance. Another potential application includes replacement of power cables between remote devices. Technology Description: The proposed solution can be applicable to any environment with vibrations which are suitable sources of energy. However the available solutions that use piezoelectric (PZT) material attached to a cantilever beam can harvest a small portion of available energy. In contrast the proposed solution aims at improving efficiency of energy harvesting by: (1) shaping the beam to maximize energy generation in PZT material and (2) voltage compensation that synchronizes operation of the harvesting circuitry with the energy conversion inside the PZT to maximize energy transfer from PZT. Theoretical and experimental results show that using curved beam in addition to voltage compensation technique can increase the harvested power by around 315% in the parallel inversion method (parallel SSHI) and around 350% in series inversion method (series SSHI) as compared to the existing inversion techniques while it does not add much to the complexity of the total circuitry. The proposed solution will generate 46mW of energy which is more than 5 time the energy harvested by a commercially available solution. Patent Status: 8129887