MEMS electrostatic micropower generator for low frequency operation

By P. Mitcheson, P. Miao, Bernard H. Stark, Eric M. Yeatman, Andrew S. Holmes, T. Green. 2004

657 citations recorded by the source corpus.

This paper describes the analysis, simulation and testing of a microengineered motion-driven power generator, suitable for application in sensors within or worn on the human body. Micro-generators capable of powering sensors have previously been reported, but these have required high frequency mechanical vibrations to excite a resonant structure. However, body-driven movements are slow and irregular, with large displacements, and hence do not effectively couple energy into such generators. The device presented here uses an alternative, non-resonant operating mode. Analysis of this generator shows its potential for the application considered, and shows the possibility to optimise the design for particular conditions. An experimental prototype based on a variable parallel-plate capacitor operating in constant charge mode is described which confirms the analysis and simulation models. This prototype, when precharged to 30 V, develops an output voltage of 250 V, corresponding to 0.3J per cycle. The experimental test procedure and the instrumentation are also described.

Subfields: Biomedical Engineering, Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Mechanical Engineering

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/bdc29f063adb64e84191734d8e3687356d95371d

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In Biomedical Engineering

In Electrical and Electronic Engineering

In Mechanical Engineering

Citations in the corpus

Modeling and analysis of piezoaeroelastic energy harvesters (2012, background): “Of the different options which include electromagnetic [7, 8], electrostatic [9] and piezoelectric [9, 10] transduction, the piezoelectric one has received the widest consideration.”
An electromechanical finite element model for piezoelectric energy harvester plates (2009, neutral): “Different transduction mechanisms (piezoelectric [9–12], electromagnetic [13–17] and electrostatic [18,19]) can be used for converting vibrations to electricity.”
Hybrid electromagnetic–triboelectric nanogenerator for harvesting vibration energy (2015, background): “Vibration energy can reportedly be scavenged using the electromagnetic, piezoelectric, electrostatic, and magnetostrictive effects [3–7].”
Large-scale vibration energy harvesting (2013, background): “…for the vibration energy harvesting, including piezoelectric materials (Galhardi et al., 2008; Sodano and Inman, 2004), linear and rotational electromagnetic motors (Rome et al., 2005), electrostatic generators (Mitcheson et al., 2004), and dielectric generators (Kornbluh et al., 2002).”
Powering MEMS portable devices—a review of non-regenerative and regenerative power supply systems with special emphasis on piezoelectric energy harvesting systems (2008, background): “Electrostatic transduction operates via a constant force, the FE damping effect, so-called Coulomb damping [190].”
Piezoelectric energy harvesting from vortex-induced vibrations of circular cylinder (2013, background): “Different transduction mechanisms can be employed for converting these vibrations to electric power, including electrostatic [8,9], electromagnetic [10], and piezoelectric [10,11] transduction.”