Power Enhancement for Piezoelectric Energy Harvester

Piezoelectric energy harvesting technology has received a great attention during the last decade to activate low power microelectronic devices such as wireless sensor nodes (WSN). This paper investigates the necessary conditions to enhance the extracted AC electrical power from the exciting vibration energy using piezoelectric material. The effect of tip mass and its mounting position on maximum power extraction are investigated theoretically and experimentally. The optimal load impedance is also investigated to maximize the output power. The experimental results validated the theoretical and concluded remarks in the paper.