A Load Impedance Emulation Active Interface for Piezoelectric Vibration Energy Harvesters

TL;DR

This paper introduces a simple active interface that emulates optimal load impedance for piezoelectric harvesters, enabling maximum power extraction without complex MPPT algorithms, and is validated through experimental tests.

Contribution

It presents a novel active interface that emulates load impedance instead of load generator, simplifying control and improving performance in vibration energy harvesting.

Findings

The interface achieves maximum power point operation in steady and variable vibrations.

Experimental results confirm the theoretical advantages and predicted behavior.

The design avoids lossy microcontrollers and perturbative MPPT techniques.

Abstract

A single stage active AC/DC interface able to emulate the optimal load impedance of a Resonant Piezoelectric Vibration Energy Harvester (RPVEH) is proposed. As theoretically shown, unlike an electronic interface that emulates an optimal load generator, an interface that emulates an optimal load impedance does not require adaptation to the acceleration of input vibrations. This allows the use of a very simple control, avoiding the implementation of Maximum Power Point Tracking (MPPT) algorithms that require lossy microcontrollers. Thus, the proposed interface is equipped with a simple analog controller allowing the RPVEH to work in its Maximum Power Point (MPP) in both steady-state and variable conditions of vibrations, without recurring to multivariable perturbative approaches, as it happens for the most of single stage AC/DC interfaces proposed in the literature. The absence of perturbative techniques allows a significant improvement of both stationary and dynamic performances. Experimental tests of a prototype of the proposed interface confirm the theoretical findings and the predicted behavior.