A self-controlled piezoelectric energy harvesting interface circuit

Abstract

We propose a novel self-controlled and highly efficient rectifier for piezoelectric energy harvesters. The proposed rectifier is simple, integrating a switched inductor capable of periodically inverting the voltage across the terminals of the piezoelectric element without requiring any external control signal. High power efficiency is achieved by completely removing the need for diodes along the inversion path. Reported experimental results demonstrate that the proposed rectifier can significantly increase the extracted power by as much as by 4 times compared to a conventional full-bridge rectifier.