Electrostatic vibration energy harvester using an electret-charged mems transducer with an unstable auto-synchronous conditioning circuit

Abstract

This paper reports for the first time experiments using an electrostatic vibration energy harvester comprised of a low voltage electret-charged MEMS transducer joined to an unstable autosynchronous conditioning circuit with rectangular charge-voltage characteristic, also known as the Bennet's doubler conditioning circuit. The experimental results show that the electret voltage, even if of low value, can be used as the necessary pre-charge for these type of electrostatic vibration energy harvesters. Also, the use of such a conditioning circuit with a low-voltage electret capacitive MEMS tranducer instead of the previously-reported conditioning circuits with direct connection to load or through a rectifier, can be advantageous in terms of maximal harvested power for a low-voltage electret, showing up to 95% higher converted power.