Analysis of power output for piezoelectric energy harvesting systems

Power harvesting refers to the practice of acquiring energy from the environment which would be otherwise wasted and converting it into usable electric energy. Much work has been done on studying the optimal AC power output, while little has considered the AC-DC output. This article investigates the optimal AC-DC power generation for a rectified piezoelectric device. In contrast with estimates based on various degrees of approximation in the recent literature, an analytic expression for the AC-DC power output is derived under steady-state operation. It shows that the harvested power depends on the input vibration characteristics (frequency and acceleration), the mass of the generator, the electrical load, the natural frequency, the mechanical damping ratio and the electromechanical coupling coefficient of the system. An effective power normalization scheme is provided to compare the relative performance and efficiency of devices. The theoretical predictions are validated and found to be in good agreement with both experimental observations and numerical simulations. Finally, several design guidelines are suggested for devices with large coupling coefficient and quality factor.