Power Conditioning For Mems-Based Waste Vibration Energy Harvester

LTJG Seyfullah EMEN, Turkish Navy

Abstract: Increasing energy needs pushes the industry to build more sustainable and efficient systems. One of the methods to achieve energy efficiency is to scavenge the wasted energy generated by system itself during operation. Vibrational energy is one of the most common ambient energy forms in mechanical systems, and can be converted into electrical energy with the implementation of piezoelectric energy harvesters. What makes this possible is the piezoelectric effect that some crystals and ceramics with no inversion symmetry show. Piezoelectric materials generate a potential difference when a force is applied and deforms under electric field. Power electronics is used to turn this potential into a usable energy. The amount of power generated by a single piezoelectric energy harvester could be very low but Microelectromechanical Systems (MEMS) technology makes it possible to have thousands of devices in a very small area. Previously a MEMS-based piezoelectric harvester for military applications was designed, developed and tested in NPS. In this thesis methods to convert the AC voltage output of this device into a DC voltage were investigated to find an efficient method. Because of their higher power needs, for military applications multiple devices need to be connected to achieve required power levels. Microfabrication processes allow building large number of such devices at the same time. This thesis also studies the possible connections for an array of devices. Connection geometry that will produce the maximum power output for a number of devices is proposed.

Point of Contact:

rharkins@nps.edu

Added:

Jul 07, 2015

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