Band-Pass Design Optimization of Piezoelectric Cantilever Bimorph Energy Harvester

Piezoelectric energy harvesting has become a feasible method for powering micro portable electronics and wireless sensor networks by converting ambient vibration energy into electrical energy. As a thumb of rule, it is critical to tune the resonant frequency of the generator to the frequency of the environmental vibrations in order to induce the maximum structural deformation and then the maximum converted electrical energy through piezoelectric effect. However, it is well-known that the ambient vibrations are not usually fixed in only one single frequency and could span over a limited frequency band. In this paper, a band-pass design optimization of piezoelectric cantilever bimorph (PCB) energy harvester is presented based on the system transfer function of the PCB generator presented in a previous literature. For such an energy harvester, a group of PCB with dimensions appropriately selected can be integrated into a band-pass energy harvester working over a limited frequency band if the dimensions of piezoelectric bimorphs and proof masses are appropriately chosen. Further, the finite element analysis (FEA) of such a band-pass energy harvester is performed in ANSYS to validate the theoretical proposal. The result shows that the band-pass design optimization leads to a piezoelectric generator working over a certain frequency band while keeping outputting the relatively stable open-circuit voltage.