Power Estimation for Wearable Piezoelectric Energy Harvester

Abstract

The aim of this research work is to estimate the amount of electricity produced to power up wearable devices using a piezoelectric actuator, as an alternative to external power supply. A prototype of the device has been designed to continuously rotate a piezoelectric actuator mounted on a cantilever beam. A MATLAB® simulation was done to predict the amount of power harvested from human kinetic energy. Further simulation was conducted using COMSOL Multiphysics® to model a cantilever beam with piezoelectric layer. With the base excitation and the presence of tip mass at the beam, the natural frequencies and mode shapes have been analyzed to improve the amount of energy harvested. In this work, it was estimated that a maximum amount of power that could be generated is 250 μW with up to 5.5V DC output. The outcome from this research works will aid in optimising the design of the energy harvester. This research work provides optimistic possibility in harvesting sufficient energy required for wearable devices.