Optimization of a Zigzag Shaped Energy Harvester for Wireless Sensing Applications

Research involving energy harvesters to power systems are often carried out in a laboratory setting where vibration excitations are created using shakers. These excitations can be tuned to the natural frequency of the harvester to achieve the highest power output possible for the harvester design. Adapting these designs for use in real world applications introduces many additional layers of complexity. These added complications come in various forms including different input vibration and acceleration profiles, sensor energy requirements, and space constraints. Existing optimization for application-based research is limited to one set of constraints and cannot be applied to different cases. This optimization is based around the use of a zigzag shaped device that is capable of achieving low natural frequencies in a compact design space. Piezoelectric materials bonded to the zigzag substrate are used to harvest energy from vibration excitations. The research in this paper presents an optimization for a zigzag shaped energy harvester based on varying input parameters in the design space to provide the optimum design for each application scenario. Optimization of this harvester creates the start of a design guide software that can be quickly used to implement sensor networks subject to a wide range of operating conditions typical of varied applications.