AN IMPACT BASED PIEZOELECTRIC HARVESTER ADAPTED TO LOW FREQUENCY ENVIRONMENTAL VIBRATIONS M.Renaud1, P. Fiorini1, R. van Schaijk2 and C.

van Hoof1 1 Inter University Microelectronics Center (IMEC), Leuven, Belgium 2 Holst Centre/IMEC Netherlands, Eindhoven, The Netherlands ABSTRACT
Vibration energy harvesters are an attractive option for powering low consumption wireless applications. Piezoelectric inertial devices based on a resonant behaviour are adapted to this type of applications for frequencies of the mechanical input in the range of hundreds of Hertz. However, in the case of human body applications, frequencies of a few Hertz are observed. For this reason, we developed an alternative approach based on the impact of a missile on piezoelectric beams. A model of such a harvester is first presented. Then, a prototype is experimentally characterized: 600W were obtained for a 10Hz frequency and 10cm amplitude linear motion.

Figure 1: Conceptual representation of the impact harvester.

KEYWORDS
Energy harvesting, piezoelectric, impact

MODELING
Piezoelectric bimorphs The typical piezoelectric structures used to convert mechanical vibration into electrical energy consist in an elastic beam supporting one or several piezoelectric layers sandwiched between metallic electrodes and thus acting as capacitors. We focus our analysis on the case of the piezoelectric bimorph, which consists of an elastic cantilever supporting two piezoelectric capacitors. The piezoelectric capacitors are arranged in a series or parallel configuration and are connected to the powered device through a signal conditioner. In our case, the principal deformation of the piezoelectric material occurs along a direction (axis-1) perpendicular to the direction (axis-3) of the polarization in the piezoelectric layer, so that the piezoelectric material is excited, to a first approximation, in the so-called transverse e31 mode. The behaviour of a piezoelectric bimorph can be described by an equivalent electrical network [3]. The mechanical part of the system is represented by the series association of an inductor m and of a capacitor k. m and k correspond respectively to the effective mass and to the stiffness of the bender. k is a complex quantity and can be written as k=k0(1+j/Q) so that parasitic dissipations are represented in the model through the quality factor Q. The mechanical elements are connected to the piezoelectric capacitor of capacitance Cp through a perfect transformer of ratio :1. Cp is the clamped capacitance, i.e. the one measured when the piezoelectric layer is not deformed. The coefficient is directly proportional to the piezoelectric constant e31. From these components, it is possible to define the generalized electromechanical coupling factor K, which is the equivalent for a

INTRODUCTION
Vibration energy harvesters can replace batteries and serve as clean and renewable energy sources for low consumption wireless applications. Harvesters delivering sufficient power for sensors operating in some particular environment have been developed, but difficulties are encountered for low frequency vibrations which dominate the spectrum of ambient vibrations, particularly when devices powered by the human body are considered. In this case, classical harvesters designs (resonant systems) are not adapted [1]. For this reason, we developed an inertial harvester able to produce reasonable amount of output power in such conditions. A conceptual representation of the proposed system is depicted in Fig. 1. It consists basically of a frame containing a channel which guides a free sliding mass (referred to as the missile in the following) and of two piezoelectric bimorphs located at the extremity of the frame (the benders are cantilevers in our case). This type of harvesters has been already discussed by a few authors, particularly by Umeda [2] who pioneered the analysis of the energy generated by the impact of a steel ball on a piezoelectric membrane. To our knowledge, no publication proposing a detailed model of the device including the description of the impact mechanism and of the resulting behaviour of the piezoelectric bender exists. For this reason, we developed a complete model of such a vibration harvester and we validated it by a series of measurements performed on a macroscopic prototype.

piezoelectric bending structure of the effective 2 2 electromechanical coupling k31 /(1- k31 ) for an unsupported and axial piezoelectric transducer. K is directly related to the amount of mechanical energy transformed into electrical energy and vice-versa during a closed thermodynamic cycle. Impact of the missile on the beam The theoretical description of impact phenomena is a complex subject which can not be easily treated without considering specific applications. Low velocity impacts are relevant in our case; they do not result in extreme reconfigurations of the considered system. We limited our analysis to one dimensional collision on a flexible beam. It is assumed that the velocities of the objects and the efforts resulting from the collision are directed along a direction perpendicular to the surface of the beam. The missile is assumed perfectly rigid. The contact surfaces are supposed to be perfectly smooth so that the friction mechanisms are neglected. The indentation surface wave resulting from the interpenetration of the two objects is neglected. The impact results in a pulse type force applied at the location of the impact. According to all the previous assumptions, the behaviour of the bender between impacts consists in free oscillations. It is also considered that the contact time between the objects during impact is short compared to the fundamental period of the bender; in this case, one can assume that the impact process and the corresponding pulse results in a quasi instantaneous redefinition of the velocity of the impacted segment in the beam and of the moving object. In our simple model, the dynamic behaviour of the system will then be discontinuous at the moment of the collision. The velocity of the two objects just before and after an impact can be related by making use of an equivalent of Newtons law of energy restitution [4]. The energetic coefficient of restitution e defines the amount of energy that is lost during the process of impact. Impact harvester We have now all the elements to establish the simplified system of equations describing the dynamics of the harvester. If we assume a simple representation of the losses which occur during the sliding of the free mass M, the dynamics of the missile is described in the referential of the devices frame by the simple ordinary differential equation M d2M/dt2+Dv dM/dt =Fext in which Dv is a viscous damping factor, M represents the position of the mass respectively to those of the piezoelectric benders and and Fext is the apparent force resulting from the motion of the frame (the model is developed in the referential attached to the devices frame). As shown in Fig. 2, the behaviour of the full system is obtained by coupling two network models of the piezoelectric bimorphs with the developed impact representation which

consists in redefining the bodies velocities at the moment of collision. The electrical equivalent of the piezoelectric beams has already been discussed previously; in the case of the missile, its dynamics are represented by the series association of an inductance M and of a resistor Dv. The impact coupling between the missile and the benders is realized through sensor type elements (indicated by the encircled symbol e) which determine when the moving mass enters into contact with one of the bender; in this case, the velocities of the missile and of the impacted bender are reinitialized according to Newtons law of energy restitution.

Figure 2: Equivalent network model of the proposed harvester

Optimization of the generated power: analytical perspectives It is not possible to develop an analytical analysis representing the complete behaviour of the impact harvester for the simple reason that the equations of motion are transcendental. The simplified situation that is considered in this section consists in a single impact approximation in which the missile hits one of the benders and does not interact with it afterwards. In this case, the piezoelectric beam undergoes after impact unperturbed free oscillations. Also, a purely resistive load was assumed in this analytical approach. This situation has been analyzed in details in [5] and we only summarize here the relevant conclusions that have obtained: In order to optimize the electromechanical energy conversion, the value of the generalized electromechanical coupling factor K has to be maximized. To a first approximation the optimum 2 value of K is directly proportional to k31 . Its optimum is obtained by implementing a particular ratio between the thicknesses of the elastic and piezoelectric layers. The mechanical quality factor Q has to be made maximum so that most of the vibration energy initially present in the beam is dissipated into the electrical load and not by parasitic mechanisms. An approximate expression of the optimum

resistive load Ropt was also found and is given in (1), where 0=(k/m)1/2 is the fundamental

frequency of the short circuited piezoelectric bender.

Ropt = 1

0 Cp 1 +

K2 2

(1)

Optimization of the generated power: numerical perspectives Multiple impacts situations were investigated by numerical analysis of the circuit of Fig. 2. Our aim consisted in determining general rules for optimizing the output power of the harvester. We assumed, as intuitive, that the conditions of maximum K and Q for optimum power presented in the previous section apply also to the multiple impact case. For this reason, we set the parameters defining K and Q to values representative of the benders that have been implemented in our experiments. k, , Cp and Q were set to respectively 1000N/m, 0.5mN/V, 3nF and 50 (and then K2=0.08). The dissipations which oppose the motion of the missile (Dv) were not taken into account in the present computations as it is clear that they have a negative influence on the output power of the system and that they have to be minimized. The missile had a mass of 4g and a free travelling distance of 15mm. The assumed input motion of the frame in the numerical analysis consisted of a quasi instantaneous 180 rotation occurring every second. Between these rotations, the frame was supposed to be oriented in such a way that the sliding channel was aligned with the gravity field g, so that the missile undergoes a gravitational force Fext=-Mg which makes it moving from one of the benders to the other. The considered input motion is representative of a movement that can easily be achieved when a device is placed on a human wrist. Given the previous considerations, the variables that are left for a parametric analysis of the harvester consist in the masses M and m, in the coefficient of restitution e, and in the characteristics of the load circuitry. For what concerns the electrical load, we considered simple resistors attached to each bender. In the numerical simulations, we computed the efficiency , defined as the amount of produced electrical energy over the initial amount of potential energy of the missile. The following conclusions were obtained: The value of the load resistor leading to the maximum efficiency is higher than the one given in (1). This effect can be explained because the motion of the beam is made of three characteristics periods. In the first type of periods, the missile is not in the vicinity of the beam and the bender undergoes free vibrations at a frequency equal to 0. In the seconds, the missile is in the neighborhood of the beam and several short time related collisions occur. For the third type ones, the missile apparently sticks to the bender and the

system oscillates at a frequency 0(1+M/m) . The latter type of period induces low frequency components in the motion of the beam. As expressed by (1), the optimum load resistor is inversely proportional to the frequency, so that the optimum resistor in multiple impacts situations is higher than in single impact ones. The influences of the masses ratio M/m and of the coefficient of restitution on the performances was quite complex. It was however observed that for small values of M/m, the coefficient of restitution has to be made as high as possible. In the case of high M/m, it was surprisingly concluded that low e led to better performances. Assuming the parameters given previously, it was found that the optimum of the conversion efficiency was roughly equal to 50%.
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EXPERIMENTAL
Single drop Experiments in which the missile was dropped a single time on a piezoelectric bender were first performed. The network parameters of the bender were equal to the ones given previously. The results of the conversion efficiency versus the load resistor are given in Fig. 3.

Figure 3: Predicted (solid line) versus measured (markers) efficiency for the single drop experiment.

The value of the optimum load resistor was in accordance with the predictions of the model but the predicted efficiency is approximately 50% higher than the measured one. This result is explained because of the losses occurring during the motion of the missile: they were neglected in the proposed numerical computations and play an important role in the general behaviour of the devices. These parasitic losses are however difficult to estimate and to represent in a proper way, as they are mainly due to the imperfectly controlled direction of impact and of bounce. Indeed, as can be seen from Fig. 4, the model gives a very good estimation of the voltage and efficiency for the first impact. However, the second impact occurs after a shorter time than the predicted one and the corresponding efficiency step is smaller than expected. It

appears that at each bounce, an important part of the kinetic energy of the missile is dissipated because of the parasitic phenomena described above.

power is sufficient to supply energy to simple sensor nodes.

Figure 4: Predicted (black line) versus measured (grey line) efficiency for the single drop experiment at optimum load.

Figure 6: Measured output power of the harvester prototype.

CONCLUSIONS
We have presented in this article the design and characterization of a prototype of harvester able to produce energy from the motion of human limbs. The proposed harvester is based on the impact of a moving object on piezoelectric bending structures. An output power of 600uW was obtained for a device of dimensions 3.5cm*2cm*2cm weighting 60g placed on the hand of a person and shaken at a frequency of approximately 10Hz for a 10cm amplitude. A large amount of the volume occupied by the prototype of the harvester can be eliminated and one can estimate an output power density of 120W/cm3 or 48W/g for an optimized device undergoing the previously described motion.

Prototype A prototype of the impact harvester was built according to the drawing given in Fig. 5. The housing was made of Teflon. Due to a lack of material, the piezoelectric benders were not optimized according to the previous considerations. Its network parameters were k=6000N/m, m=600mg, Q=40, =1mN/V and Cp=9.6nF.

REFERENCES
[1] P. D. Mitcheson, T. C. Green, E. M. Yeatman, A. S. Holmes Architectures for vibration-driven micropower generators, J. Microelectromech. Syst., vol. 13, pp. 429440, 2004. [2] M. Umeda, K. Nakamura K, S. Ueha Analysis of transformation of mechanical impact energy to electrical energy using a piezoelectric vibrator, Jap. J. Applied Phys., vol. 35, pp 3267-3273, 1996. [3] M. Renaud, K. Karakaya., T. Sterken, P. Fiorini, C. van Hoof, R. Puers Fabrication, modeling and characterization of MEMS piezoelectric vibration harvesters, Sens. and actuat. A, vol.145-146, pp 380386, 2007. [4] W. J. Stronge, Impact mechanics, Cambridge University press, 2000. [5] M. Renaud, P. Fiorini P, C. van Hoof Optimization of a piezoelectric unimorph for shock and impact energy harvesting, Smart. Mater. Struct., vol. 16, pp 11251135, 2007.

Figure 5: Technical drawing of the prototype

The prototype was tested when it was attached to the hand of a person and strongly shaken. The frequency and amplitude of the applied motion were estimated to 10Hz and 10cm. This extreme situation was obtained in our case by simulating a strong scratching motion. Such vibrations might also be observed in some sportive situations (off road motor biking) and professional activities (jackhammer). The output power of the device under these conditions and versus the load resistor is presented in Fig. 6. A maximum of 600W was measured. In such erratic conditions of excitation, the behaviour of the power does not follow a smooth curve; however, it is observed that for resistor ranging from 3k till 60k, values above 400W are obtained. This amount of