Vibration energy scavenging and management for ultra low power applications

In this work, the design of a mechanical vibration energy scavenging and management system is presented for ultra low power applications. A new maximum power point tracking (MPPT) scheme is proposed for piezoelectric conversion. This scheme consumes very little power and is especially suitable for ultra low power energy harvesting applications. This design is capable of self-starting and self-powered, thus eliminates external battery integration and significantly reduces the system volume. System modeling, analysis, and VLSI implementation were developed. Various simulations were carried out and the simulation results show that the proposed MPPT scheme can achieve an energy harvesting efficiency higher than 90%.