An investigation on piezoelectric energy harvesting for MEMS power sources

This paper presents the feasibility of using piezoelectric materials in a power source for micro-electro-mechanical systems (MEMS) devices. The finite element method (FEM) is adopted to evaluate the power generations of commercially available piezofilms that are subjected to a fluctuating pressure source (blood pressure). The accuracy of the results obtained from the FEM is verified by comparing with the corresponding results obtained from a theoretical analysis. In addition, an experiment is undertaken in order to evaluate the power generation of two different shapes of the piezofilms: square and circle. Finally, a brief discussion is made on the storage of experimentally harvested power and use of the MEMS applications.