Abstract
With the advancement in the technologies around the world over the past few years, the microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) have gained much attention in harvesting the energy for wireless, self-powered and MEMS devices. In the present era, many devices are available for energy harnessing such as electromagnetic, electrostatic and piezoelectric generator and these devices are designed based on its ability to capture the different form of environment energy such as solar energy, wind energy, thermal energy and convert it into the useful energy form. Out of these devices, the use of a piezoelectric generator for energy harvesting is very attractive for MEMS applications. There are various sources of harvestable energy including waste heat, solar energy, wind energy, energy in floating water and mechanical vibrations which are used by the researchers for energy harvesting purposes. This paper reviews the state-of-the-art in harvesting mechanical vibrations as an energy source by various generators (such as electromagnetic, electrostatic and piezoelectric generators). Also, the design and characteristics of piezoelectric generators, using vibrations of cantilevered bimorphs, for MEMS have also been reviewed here. Electromagnetic, electrostatic and piezoelectric generators presented in the literature are reviewed by taking into an account the power output, frequency, acceleration, dimension and application of each generator and the coupling factor of each transduction mechanism has also been discussed for all the devices.
Highlights
Over the past few years, the use of energy harvesting devices for harvesting the useless surrounding energy has grown tremendously for empowering small portable as well as importable units
Many researchers have focused on the different available environmental energy sources including wind energy, solar energy, thermal gradients and mechanical vibrations [1]
Roundy [14] focused on electrostatic vibration to electricity converter made by using MEMS technology; their simulations result shows that an output power density of 116 μW/cm3 is possible from input vibrations of 2.25 m/s2 at 120 Hz
Summary
Over the past few years, the use of energy harvesting devices for harvesting the useless surrounding energy has grown tremendously for empowering small portable as well as importable units. Many techniques are available for converting mechanical vibration into the usable electrical energy such as electromagnetic (for instance, see [5]), electrostatic (for instance, see [6]), and piezoelectric generators (for instance, see [7]) Among these techniques piezoelectric generator is considered as a potential technique of energy conversion for MEMS application. This review article is about energy harvesting concepts, different types of harvesting generators which convert mechanical movement (energy) present in the application environment into usable electrical energy. It discusses the design and characterization of piezoelectric vibration in electricity converters
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