Wideband energy harvesting based on mixed connection of piezoelectric oscillators

An approach for wideband energy harvesting together with power enhancement is proposed by integrating multiple piezoelectric oscillators with mixed parallel-series connection. This gives rise to the feasibility of shifting the operation frequency band to the dominant frequency domain of ambient excitations. There are two types of connection patterns discussed here: the p-type (s-type) is the parallel (series) connection of all sets of oscillators where some of them may be connected in series (parallel). In addition, the standard interface circuit used for electric rectification is adopted here. The analytic estimates of output power are derived and explicitly expressed in terms of different matrix formulations for these two connection patterns. They are subsequently validated and are found in good agreement with numerical simulations and experimental observations. Finally, the experimental results from the mixed connection of 4 piezoelectric oscillators show that the peak power of each array is about 3.4 times higher than that generated by a single piezoelectric oscillator. In addition, the bandwidth of the array capable of switching connection patterns is around 2.8 times wider than that based on a single array configuration. Hence, the effective bandwidth is enlarged without the loss of peak power. (paper)