Electrostatic vibration energy harvester with 2.4-GHz Cockcroft–Walton rectenna start-up

Abstract

Abstract In this paper, we propose the design, fabrication and experiments of a macro-scale electrostatic vibration energy harvester (e-VEH), pre-charged wirelessly for the first time with a 2.4-GHz Cockcroft–Walton rectenna. The rectenna is designed and optimized to operate at low power densities and provide high voltage levels: 0.5 V at 0.76 μW/cm 2 and 1 V at 1.53 μW/cm 2 . The e-VEH uses a Bennet doubler as a conditioning circuit. Experiments show a 23-V voltage across the transducer terminal, when the harvester is excited at 25 Hz by 1.5 g of external acceleration. An accumulated energy of 275 μJ and a maximum available power of 0.4 μW are achieved.