Comparison of the dielectric electroactive polymer generator energy harvesting cycles

The Dielectric ElectroActive Polymer (DEAP) generator energy harvesting cycles have been in the spotlight of the scientific interest for the past few years. Indeed, several articles have demonstrated thorough and comprehensive comparisons of the generator fundamental energy harvesting cycles, namely Constant Charge (CC), Constant Voltage (CV) and Constant E-field (CE), based on averaged theoretical models. Yet, it has not been possible until present to validate the outcome of those comparisons via respective experimental results. In this paper, all three primary energy harvesting cycles are experimentally compared, based upon the coupling of a DEAP generator with a bidirectional non-isolated power electronic converter, by means of energy gain, energy harvesting efficiency and energy conversion efficiency.