Energy harvesting using vibrating structures excited by shock

Abstract

Energy scavenging research shows a growing interest these last years. This paper aims to demonstrate the ability of micromachined vibrating structures to store mechanical energy and then to convert it into electrical energy through a piezoelectric plate. Such a micro power generator may be used as a mechanical to electrical energy transformer. The energy conversion consists in a mechanical shock enabling to convert low vibrating energy levels at very low frequencies (typically below 10 Hz for human being excitation source) to mechanical energy to the vibrating structure for which resonant frequencies are ranging from 10 kHz to 1 MHz. Moreover this basic low frequencies to high frequencies spectrum conversion enables to avoid frequency tuning designing that is required for adapting the frequency spectrum of the excitation source.