Improvement of the Mechanical/Electrical Conversion for Piezoelectric Cantilever

International audienceIn this paper, we present the optimization of the energy harvesting in the case of piezoelectric converter. In fact, the conversion of mechanical energy from environmental vibrations into electrical energy is a key point for powering sensor nodes, toward the development of autonomous sensor systems. Piezoelectric energy converters realized in a cantilever configuration are the most studied for this purpose. In order to improve the performances of the converter, the polarization was specially studied with FEM simulations. A parametrized model was created. The electrical energy generated by the converter under an applied force was computed. The experimental results were shown for ceramic PZT