Modeling and Simulation of Piezoelectric Energy Harvesting

Energy harvesting has received growing attention over the last decade. The research motivation in this field is due to the reduced power requirement of small electronic components, such as the wireless sensor networks used in structural health monitoring applications. The ultimate goal in this research field is to power such small electronic devices by using the vibration energy available in their environment. If this can be achieved, the requirement of an external power source as well as the maintenance requirement for periodic battery replacement can be minimized. In this paper, the modeling, simulation and experimental results of the piezoelectric energy harvesting using LabVIEW and Matlab are presented. This paper describes a dynamic model to simulate piezoelectric harvester and to identify model parameters with real time measurements and standard laboratory equipment.