Sustainable micro-power circuit for piezoelectric energy harvesting tile

ABSTRACT

Piezoelectric energy harvesting tiles are used for converting the power of pedestrian footsteps in to electricity and can be used at the micro- and milli-watt level for storage and powering electronics devices. This paper effectively combines the systems and techniques for developing a sustainable circuit with the self-starting and self-power functions to efficiently store energy and drive low power consumption electronic devices from the piezoelectric energy harvester tile. The main part of the system is 80% efficient impedance matching converter with the self-starting and battery-less operation. The presented circuit has an overall efficiency of 63% and can power a wireless sensor node to transmit the information wirelessly.

KEYWORDS:

• Piezoelectric
• energy harvesting
• impedance matching
• low power
• wireless sensor

Funding

This work was supported by the Energy Technology Development Project (KETEP) grant funded by the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy, Republic of Korea (Piezoelectric Energy Harvester Development and Demonstration for scavenging Energy from Road Traffic System, project No. 20142020103970).