Integrable High-Efficiency AC-DC Converter for Piezoelectric Energy Scavenging System

In recent years a lot of studies focused on energy-scavenging systems (ESS). An important motivation for these studies is the development of portable devices (PD) and of wireless sensors network (WSN). An ESS can be partitioned in two sections: the energy-scavenger itself and the electronic interface. The first one is the energy transducer while the second one is the electronic circuit which manages the energy. One of the most important objectives of the electronic interface is to realize the required ac-dc conversion. Since the output power level of the energy-scavenger can be very low, the conversion should be as efficient as possible. The goal of this paper is to design a voltage doubler ac-dc converter and optimize it. A passive and an active solution were compared using the converter efficiency as a figure of merit.