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Piezoelectric Energy Harvesting As Opportunity of Powering Intelligent Implants and Prostheses
Piezoelectric Energy Harvesting As Opportunity of Powering Intelligent Implants and Prostheses
Piezo-Device
Ip
Cp
Rload
I. INTRODUCTION
In future the rising deficiency of energy supply causes
new strategies for satisfaction of demand and more than this
for nearly all of the types of energy needing applications. To
avoid this situation many concepts will be developed not only
covering the primary supply, but also supporting any other
energy requiring technical application. In medicine there is
a progressive development of intelligent implants and prostheses to cure the main functions of organs and extremities
with disorder. In addition they increasingly have the purpose
to control vital parameters to ensure their functionality and
to improve abilities of the medical application. Therefore
cordless power supplies of these products loom large and
will nowadays be realized inductively or with batteries. For
a better healing process and best therapy conditions selfsustaining power supplies are inevitable. The process to
transfer any environmental energy into electrical power is
called energy harvesting. Independent power sources are
concepts also considering the fact that any kind of movement
of or in the human body could produce energy using piezoelectric elements. Lung and pleura, muscles, vessels, the eye
and human movement are just some examples to work as
power sources in combination with piezoelectric elements
integrated in intelligent implants, clothes and prostheses.
Known since 1880 the direct piezoelectric effect describes
This work was supported by the BMBF
A. Hofmann is with the Institute of Biomedical Engineering and Informatics, Ilmenau University of Technology, Ilmenau, 98693 Germany (e-mail:
alexander.hofmann@tu-ilmenau.de)
D. Laqua is with the Institute of Biomedical Engineering and Informatics, Ilmenau University of Technology, Ilmenau, 98693 Germany (e-mail:
daniel.laqua@tu-ilmenau.de)
P. Husar is with the Institute of Biomedical Engineering and Informatics, Ilmenau University of Technology, Ilmenau, 98693 Germany (email:peter.husar@tu-ilmenau.de)
(1)
BioSensor
Microcontroller
Power Circuit
Piezo-Device
PiezoHarvester
Charger
Battery
Fig. 2.
Basic concept of the highly integrated measurement system
with microcontroller, biosensor and the power circuit consisting of the
piezoelectric device, the Piezo-Harvester, the charger and the battery
COPiezo
Piezo
PIR102
COC1
C1
PIC102
PIC101
PILTC31080C1
C1
PILTC31080VS1
VS1
VOUT
PILTC31080VOUT
VSTORE
PILTC31080VSTORE
PIC201 COC2
C2
PIC301 C3
COC3
COLTC3108
LTC3108
PILTC31080VS2
VS2
VLDO
PILTC31080VLDO
PILTC31080GND
GND
VAUX
PILTC31080VAUX
PIC501
PIC502
PIC401 C4
COC4
PIC402
PIC202
PIC302
COC5
C5
GND
Fig. 3.
Equivalent circuit of the power generating system with the
piezoelectric element V22B and the energy harvester LTC3108
The following measurement results describe the performance of the energy harvester device LTC3108 in combination with the piezoelectric element V22B 4.
Fig. 4.
Complete system for power generation with the piezoelectric
element V22B and the energy harvester LTC3108
3
4
Realising
ideal operation conditions the actuator
was adjusted so that maximum elongations of the piezoelectric
element produces voltages of about 3Vpp at the beginning of
the measurement as it is shown in figure 5 (from second 9 to
A
31). From second 32 to 78 it rises up to 6.5Vpp . Although
the LTC3108 works at ca. 20mV , this value strictly depends
on additional, larger sized external circuitry, which needs a
transformer that was not used for this setup. It also depends
on a sufficiently startup input current, if the circuitry will
start to work properly. Nevertheless a main goal of this work
is to handle input power as low as possible. The greater force
at second half of the measurement was adjusted to test the
material properties and stability of the piezoelectric element B
and to detect possible instabilities of the generated output
DC-voltage. Figure 6 visualizes the oscillation of the stressed
piezoelectric element around the 20th second which is not
harmonic according to the realized dynamic unbalance of
the actuator. At this period of time maximum input voltages
of 2, 7Vpp were achieved. Of course these settings cannot
simulate every day conditions for possible applications but
make it harder to work perfectly for the harvester.
C
4500
oscillating piezo
4000
3500
3000
Y(f) = fft(y)
Vout in V
2500
2000
1500
1000
500
10
20
30
40
time in s
50
60
50
70
100
150
frequency f in Hz
200
250
2
3
1.5
2.5
1
Vout in V
Vosc in V
2
0.5
0.5
1.5
0
1.5
0.5
0.05
0.1
0.15
time in s
10
15
20
25
time in s
Fig. 6.
This diagram is a small section from the output voltage of
the piezoelectric element. With the connected harvesting device it is a
disharmonic oscillation with a peak to peak voltage of 2, 7V .
2.52
Vout in V
2.51
2.5
2.49
2.48
10
10
time in s
2.52
Vout in V
2.51
2.5
2.49
VI. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
2.48
4
time in s
Fig. 9.
Typical ripple output voltage as a function of time: unsteady
signal(upper graph) and signal in steady state (graph below)