This paper presents a micro-electro-mechanical system (MEMS) piezoelectric power generator array for vibration energy harvesting. A complete design flow of the vibration-based energy harvester using the finite element method (FEM) is proposed. The modal analysis is selected to calculate the resonant frequency of the harvester, and harmonic analysis is performed to investigate the influence of t...

Piezoelectric energy harvester (PEH), which generates electricity from stress or vibrations, is attracting tremendous attention as a viable solution to extend battery life of wearable devices. More interestingly, besides the harvesting capability, recent research has demonstrated feasibility leveraging PEH an power-free sensor for gait recognition its vibration patters are significantly influen...

This work presents a nonlinear vibration energy harvester, which combines a nonlinear bistable broadband piezoelectric cantilever used to transduce ambient vibration energy, with synchronized capture for efficient harvesting over broadband sources. An accurate model of the bistable transducer, that augments the Butterworth van Dyke piezoelectric model to capture the external magnetic force adde...

Simultaneous Wireless Information and Power Transfer (SWIPT) has attracted significant attention in the communication community. The problem of waveform design has however never been addressed so far. In this paper, we first investigate how a communication waveform (OFDM) and a power waveform (multisine) compare with each other in terms of harvested energy. We show that due to the non-linearity...

Magnetic levitation has been used to implement low-cost and maintenance-free electromagnetic energy harvesting. The ability of levitation-based harvesting systems to operate autonomously for long periods of time makes them well-suited for self-powering a broad range of technologies. In this paper, a combined theoretical and experimental study is presented of a harvester configuration that utili...

This paper presents the methodology and challenges experienced in the microfabrication, packaging, and integration of a fixed-fixed folded spring piezoelectric energy harvester. A variety of challenges were overcome in the fabrication of the energy harvesters, such as the diagnosis and rectification of sol-gel PZT film quality and adhesion issues. A packaging and integration methodology was dev...

Energy harvesters are being used to power autonomous systems, but their output power is variable and intermittent. To sustain computation, these systems integrate batteries or supercapacitors to smooth out rapid changes in harvester output. Energy storage devices require time for charging and increase the size, mass and cost of systems. The field of transient computing moves away from this appr...

Making the most of twists and turns The rise of small-scale, portable electronics and wearable devices has boosted the desire for ways to harvest energy from mechanical motion. Such approaches could be used to provide batteryfree power with a small footprint. Kim et al. present an energy harvester made from carbon nanotube yarn that converts mechanical energy into electrical energy from both to...