Geometric optimization of a piezoelectric power harvesting plate for increased bandwidth

Document Type

Conference Proceeding

Publication Date

6-17-2008

Abstract

The continual advances in wireless technology and low power electronics have allowed the deployment of small remote sensor networks. However, current portable and wireless devices must be designed to include electrochemical batteries as the power source. The use of batteries can be troublesome due to their limited lifespan, thus necessitating their periodic replacement. Furthermore, the growth of battery technology has remained relatively stagnant over the past decade while the performance of computing systems has grown steadily, which leads to increased power usage from the electronics. In the case of wireless sensors that are to be placed in remote locations, the sensor must be easily accessible or of disposable nature to allow the device to function over extended periods of time. For this reason the primary question becomes how to provide power to each node. This issue has spawned the rapid growth of the energy harvesting field. Energy scavenging devices are designed to capture the ambient energy surrounding the electronics and convert it into usable electrical energy. The concept of power harvesting works towards developing self-powered devices that do not require replaceable power supplies. However, when designing a vibration based energy harvesting system the maximum energy generation occurs when the resonant frequency of the system is tuned to the input. This poses certain issues for their practical application because structural systems rarely vibrate at a signal frequency. Therefore, this effort will investigate the optimal geometric design of two dimensional energy harvesting systems for maximized bandwidth. Topology and shape optimization will be used to identify the optimal geometry and experiments will be performed to characterize the energy harvesting improvement when subjected to random vibrations. Copyright © 2007 by ASME.

Publication Title

2007 Proceedings of the ASME International Design Engineering Technical Conferences and Computers and Information in Engineering Conference, DETC2007

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