Investigation of a cantilever structured piezoelectric energy harvester used for wearable devices with random vibration input

•A piezoelectric energy harvester used for human motion energy harvesting.•Energy harvesting capability of using a linear harvester in random vibration input.•Performance tested in real-life activities in hand-arm and head motions.•Output power enough to drive medical sensors in real applications.•G...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Mechanical systems and signal processing 2018-06, Vol.106, p.303-318
Main Authors: Bai, Yang, Tofel, Pavel, Hadas, Zdenek, Smilek, Jan, Losak, Petr, Skarvada, Pavel, Macku, Robert
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Body motion
Cantilever
Electricity generation
Energy consumption
Energy harvesting
Human motion
Kinetic energy
Piezoelectric
Piezoelectricity
Power consumption
PZNN-PLZT
Random vibration
Sensors
Simulation
Studies
Wearable
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:•A piezoelectric energy harvester used for human motion energy harvesting.•Energy harvesting capability of using a linear harvester in random vibration input.•Performance tested in real-life activities in hand-arm and head motions.•Output power enough to drive medical sensors in real applications.•Guidance to help designers to balance the choice of a linear and nonlinear systems in energy harvesters. The capability of using a linear kinetic energy harvester – A cantilever structured piezoelectric energy harvester – to harvest human motions in the real-life activities is investigated. The whole loop of the design, simulation, fabrication and test of the energy harvester is presented. With the smart wristband/watch sized energy harvester, a root mean square of the output power of 50 μW is obtained from the real-life hand-arm motion in human’s daily life. Such a power is enough to make some low power consumption sensors to be self-powered. This paper provides a good and reliable comparison to those with nonlinear structures. It also helps the designers to consider whether to choose a nonlinear structure or not in a particular energy harvester based on different application scenarios.
ISSN:0888-3270
1096-1216
DOI:10.1016/j.ymssp.2018.01.006