Energy harvesting using dielectric elastomers

Smart materials used as generators have received considerable attention lately and several prototypes were built to demonstrate the process. The focus of this paper is to show how the dielectric elastomers can be used as variable capacitor generator, how the maximum energy gain can be withdrawn from the system by realizing an innovative current waveform to charge and discharge the polymer. The paper presents a dynamic model to calculate the capacitance of the electroactive polymer according to the external loading and investigates and compares several energy harvesting cycles based on the energy gain. Several energy harvesting cycles are introduced and their energy output compared. The most promising cycle has been optimized to increase its production while taking several limiting factors into account. By obtaining this optimized innovative current waveform, a suitable power electronics converter can be designed for a real application.