Design of Piezoelectric MEMS Sensor for Energy Harvesting from Low Frequency Applications

This paper presents a design of a Piezo-electric sensor model which acts as an energy harvester based on vibrations. The ample vibration-based micro electromechanical systems (MEMS) piezoelectric harvester has become an important subject in most research publications. It provides a green and practically infinite alternative power source to conventional energy sources, this harvester will significantly explore the applications of wireless sensor networks, biomedical implants etc., which may generate mW or μW level of power. Vibration energy harvesting has been employed for converting ample amount of kinetic energy into electric energy by several different transduction methods. Amongst many transducing harvesters, the piezoelectric energy harvester (PEH) is compatible with MEMS technology and has a high electromechanical coupling effect and requires no external voltage sources and accordingly has been in most of recent research. The simplicity associated with piezoelectric micro-generators make them very attractive for MEMS applications in which ambient vibrations are harvested and converted into electric energy. These micro shaped-generators can become an alternative to the battery-based solutions in the future. In this paper, we propose a model and present the simulation of a MEMS-based energy harvester under ambient vibration excitation using the COMSOL 4.3b approaches.