Performance Characteristic of Piezoelectric Energy Harvesting Device

With the demand for wireless sensing devices and low power electronics without external power supply, the concept of energy harvesting in the ambient environment raises a great interest. Energy harvesting by vibration with piezoelectric materials can be used to convert mechanical energy into electrical energy that can be stored and used to power other devices. This conversion of vibrations (mechanical) energy to electrical energy through the use of piezoelectric devices is an exciting and rapidly developing area of research with a widening range of applications constantly materializing. In this context, the goal of this present paper is to develop a comprehensive prototype generator that can harvest vibration energy available and convert it to electrical energy and provide to estimate the output power so as to optimize its performance. The experimental results led to a power optimization from that prototype by different characteristic of piezoelectric ceramic plate PZT-4.