Analog Microcontroller Model for an Energy Harvesting Round Counter

An energy harvesting electronic round counter has been developed that uses piezoelectric transducers mounted on the gun to generate electrical energy in response to the strain associated with each fired round. These transducers produce limited energy, so lumped-parameter models of the transducer and round counter circuitry were developed to optimize the electrical efficiency. The greatest energy requirement of the circuitry is associated with a microcontroller that updates the cumulative count in non-volatile memory. An analog model of the current-voltage relationship for the microcontroller was developed using timed stages to represent sequential execution of the firmware. Simulation results were compared to experimental data and used to optimize the circuit design and configuration of the piezoelectric transducers.