Comparison of Circuits for Dielectric Elastomer Based Energy Harvesting

This paper proposes a comparative study of harvesting circuits which were used as energy harvesting circuits for dielectric elastomer generator. The comparison of three different harvesting circuits has been made in terms of output voltage, output power, frequency response and conversion efficiency. The simulations are carried out using PSPICE software to convert low as well as high frequency generator outputs to a steady low DC voltage for storing energy into a Li-ion battery. Simulation results for output voltage are shown to swing between 3.5 V to 4.2 V. The study boosts in understanding the nature of frequency response and effectiveness of different approaches of forward path circuits to store electrical energy produced by dielectric elastomer generator using ambient kinetic energy input sources.