Enhancing the Output Power of a Piezoelectric Energy Harvester by Reducing the Effect of the Internal Capacitance Using Inductance
This paper describes an innovative method for enhancing the power output of a piezoelectric energy harvester. The proposed approach is adopting inductance to reduce the effect of the internal capacitance of the piezoelectric harvester to boost the power output. Four electrical circuits for a piezoelectric beam harvester are studied; Simple Resistive Load (SRL), Inductive Load (IL), Standard AC-DC, and Inductive AC-DC circuits. An inductor is added to the SRL and standard AC-DC circuits to build the new IL and Inductive AC-DC circuits respectively. The power outputs of the four circuits are then studied. The results show that the adaptation of inductor enhances the power output. The IL circuit enhances the power output comparing to the SRL circuit. The Inductive AC-DC circuit also avails the standard AC-DC circuit.