Electronic Interface for Piezoelectric Energy

Scavenging System
E. Dallago, D. Miatton, G. Venchi V. Bottarel, G. Frattini1, G. Ricotti, M. Schipani
Department of Electrical Engineering STMicroelectronics
University of Pavia, 27100 Pavia, Italy 20010 Cornaredo, Milan, Italy

Abstract- The paper focuses on an electronic interface for output to store the harvested energy. The main limitation is
systems, called Piezoelectric Energy Scavenging Systems that the energy associated to transducer output voltages
(PESS), which convert the energy of mechanical vibrations lower than the voltage stored on CO can not be harvested.
into electrical energy using a piezoelectric transducer. The This is a big drawback because in a real environment the
output of the transducer is a strong and irregular function of mechanical vibrations and, consequently, the transducer
time hence, to obtain a suitable supply source, an AC-DC output voltage, are often an irregular function of time. For
conversion is needed. Classical rectifiers (half/full bridge or example, Fig. 1 shows the measured voltage given by a
voltage doubler) with an output storage capacitor do not fit piezoelectric transducer placed onto a car dashboard: there
very well, since they work as peak detectors, converting only
are few chances that the peaks following the one at 5
input voltages which are higher than their output voltage.
The paper shows an electronic interface which is able to
seconds could be harvested.
efficiently harvest the energy associated to the randomic Anyway, even if the source is sinusoidal, after a
voltage waveform delivered by a piezoelectric transducer. Its transient a condition is reached when energy is no longer
working principle is based on an inductive step-up converter; transfered from the transducer to the output. To realize an
an active driving circuit is used to set the phases of the efficient energy scavenging system it is necessary to
converter. The energy is stored into a capacitor which is also harvest the energy of the entire waveform.
used to supply the active elements of the step-up converter,
0.8
realizing a completely autonomous energy scavenging system.
For this reason the whole circuitry has been designed with a 0.6
Transducer Voltage [V]

very low-power consumptions, about 700 nA. A prototype was

0.4
diffused in 5V CMOS STMicroelectronics technology and
measurements showed its effectiveness. 0.2

0
I. INTRODUCTION
-0.2
Energy scavenging systems are used to harvest the
normally lost environmental energy and to convert it into -0.4
electrical energy. This approach can be attractive where -0.6
batteries are a bottleneck for the whole system (e.g. they 0 5 10 15 20
time [s]
have a finite life time and their replacement or recharge is Fig. 1 Voltage supplied by a piezoelectric transducer, working in
not feasible or too expensive). An energy scavenging 31-mode, placed onto a dashboard.
system, instead, is a theoretically endless energy source. In
literature many papers describe methodologies to realize The proposed solution is aimed at improving the efficiency
the energy-scavenger [1], [6], [8]. A lot of them focus on of a PESS based on a cantilever-like piezoelectric
the conversion of the energy associated to mechanical transducer working in 31-mode. The front-end circuitry
vibrations since they can be easily found in many allows positive peaks of any amplitude to be harvested
environments [1], [7]. This paper focuses on a piezoelectric indipendently of the voltage across the storage capacitor
transducer since it is one of the more efficient systems to CO; while, for negative peaks, the behaviour of the circuit
convert the energy of mechanical vibrations [1]-[2]. is the same as the standard voltage doubler.
The electrical output of the transducer is a strong and A test chip was diffused in 5V CMOS
irregular function of time [1]-[4], [9] thus an AC-DC STMicroelectronics technology and the measurements are
conversion is needed to realize a DC power supply. In presented.
literature many solutions are presented to realize this
function, mainly based on classical topologies of AC-DC II. WORKING PRINCIPLE OF THE PROPOSED SOLUTION
converters [1], [3]-[4], [9]-[11] (e.g. half/full bridge, A piezoelectric transducer can be modeled as a current
voltage doubler) with a capacitance CO connected at their source, iP, whose current is proportional to the derivative of
cantilever strain, with a capacitor CP in parallel [12].
1
Now he is with National Semiconductor s.r.l., Strada 7, R3,20089, Fig. 2a shows the block scheme of the proposed electronic
Rozzano (MI), Italy
interface while Fig. 2b is the working cycle obtained with

978-1-4244-2362-0/08/$25.00 2008 IEEE. 402

an appropriate driving of the switches. Let us assume the
cantilever starts from rest condition (no strain and no
charge on plates) and it is then deflected from a to b
(ref. Fig. 2b). If no load is connected to Cp, voltage vP is the
integral of current iP and it reaches a local maximum VPMax
when the cantilever is at its maximum strain. At this point,
CP has collected the maximum charge, QPmax, onto its plates
and it stores an electrical energy equal to:

2
1 Q P max
E= (1)
2 CP

Energy harvesting is maximally efficient if all of this

energy is extracted. A classical rectifier does not comply to
this requirement because it connects the transducer to the
output storage capacitance as soon as the voltage vP is
higher than VO [4, 10]. In this way the transducer has to Fig. 2 a) Principle scheme of the proposed front-end circuit. b) Working
produce a charge CPVO to reach the voltage VO and from cycle realized by the front-end circuit.
this moment on all of the extra generated charge is shared
between CP and CO. Hence, all the cantilever deflections the energy corresponding to a whole deflection from
which produce a voltage lower than VO do not transfer negative peak to positive peak. This holds even if the
energy to CO. amplitude of each deflection is different from the previous
On the contrary the proposed solution is able to extract all one.
the energy defined in (1) and to store it into storage
capacitance CO. This can be obtained in four phases. III. DESIGN OF THE AC-DC CONVERTER
During phase 1 the transducer is strained (path a-b of Fig. 3a shows the circuitry designed to implement the
Fig. 2b) and all the switches of Fig. 2a are open. In this conceptual scheme of Fig. 2a.
way the whole interface circuit is not loading the The driving circuitry has to be supplied only by the output
transducer. When the maximum strain is reached, the voltage VO, i.e. by the harvested energy, hence its power
transducer has generated the energy defined in (1), CP consumption should be as low as possible. Furthermore,
stores it and voltage on node lx+ has reached the maximum. since voltage VO is variable in time, a supply independent
Driving circuitry senses this condition and starts phase 2: bias circuitry [5] has been designed so to make the whole
switch S2 is closed and a resonance between CP and L current consumption independent on the supply variations.
Some modifications have been introduced with respect to
takes place (path b-c of Fig. 2b). When the voltage on node
[5]; in particular, to implement the start-up function, the
lx+ reaches zero all the energy of the piezoelectric leakage of two p-channel MOSFETs has been exploited.
transducer has been transfered into inductance L. Driving This solution allows us to avoid additional start-up
circuitry senses this new condition and phase 3 starts: circuitry, reducing the total power consumption.
switch S2 is opened while switches S1 and S3 are closed Switch S1 has been splitted in two switches: S1' and S1''
(point c of Fig. 2b). When the current into L reaches zero which are used during phase 4 and phase 3 respectively. In
the energy of L will be completely transfered to CO and fact, the purpose of the prototype is to check the validity of
phase 3 ends. At this time switches S2 and S3 are opened. this new approach and an attempt was made to keep the
If phases 2 and 3 are faster than the variation of the driving circuitry as simple as possible. In particular, switch
cantilever strain during these phases, in a first S1'' can be simply driven inverting phase 3, while a
approximation the transducer can be considered motionless dedicated circuit drives switch S1' by sensing the voltage
at the maximum deflection reached at the end of phase 1. across it.
When phase 3 ends the cantilever starts to be deflected in Inductance L is an external component and its value has to
the opposite direction and phase 4 can be started. Switch be chosen so to obtain a resonant frequency with capacitor
S1 is closed and path c-d of Fig. 2b is covered: current CP faster than the dynamics of the mechanical strain. As it
supplied by piezoelectric transducer recirculates through S1 was said, this guarantees that during phase 2 and 3 the
and no charge is collected onto capacitor CP, as in the cantilever is almost motionless at its maximum deflection,
standard voltage doubler topology. When the maximum thus the energy transfer from the piezoelectric transducer to
deflection is reached (point d) phase 1 takes place again: the inductance is more efficient. In our case a value of
differently from point a the cantilever is at a negative strain 2200 H was chosen while CP was set to 220 nF (typical
value for a practical piezoelectric transducer): this gives
but still has no charges on its plates. Hence during the
rise to a resonant frequency fR of about 7.23 kHz. This
motion from d to e a positive charge is already collected on
frequency is significantly higher than the frequencies of
CP corresponding to an energy that the circuit will be able typical environmental vibrations which are in the order of
to harvest. At the end of phase 1, when new maximum some tens of hertz [1].
deflection is reached (point f), the charge increases further During the start-up phase no energy is stored into CO and
because of the positive deflection. its voltage is not enough to supply the actives elements,
This demonstrates that this circuit recovers not only the hence a passive path from the transducer to CO has to be
energy of positive voltage peaks, but it is able to harvest guaranteed. This function has been realized exploiting the

403
parassitic body-drain diodes of switches S1', S1'' and S3: Fig. 5 shows a detail of the voltages VO (blue trace),
they implement a passive AC-DC voltage doubler which vP (green trace) and v2 (red trace): these were measured
works during the start-up. Inductor L does not interfere with the same input conditions defined in Fig. 4.
during the passive rectification. In particular it is possible to see that along phase 2 the
Driving circuitry is presented in Fig. 3a as a block scheme, voltage vP is sinusoidal and it is due to the resonance
while Fig. 3b shows a picture of the diffused prototype; its between CP and L. In the same phase switch S2 is closed
area is equal to 320 x 360 m2. and node lx- is clamped at a voltage near to zero. It is
During phase 1 driving circuit keeps all switches open. possible to see also when S2 is opened because voltage on
Phase 2 has to start when vP reaches its maximum value node lx- gets higher than VO: from this moment on CMP2
and it ends when vP reaches zero. The first condition is closes the switches S3 and S1''. At the beginning of phase 4
detected by the Peak Detector while the second by
an oscillation of vP takes place: this is due to a resonance of
comparator CMP1. The output signals of these blocks are
routed to the SET (S) and RESET (R) input of a NAND the inductance L (which has not completely discharged into
based flip-flop which was designed to avoid the CO) with parassitic capacitances. Fig. 5 shows that CMP1
undetermined state. was designed to open S2 before vP reaches zero: in
Phase 3 has to start when the inductance current reaches its particular S2 is switched off when vP is 400mV. This was
maximum value; since it is caused by the resonance done to prevent a delayed switching off of S2, due to the
between L and CP, the current peak is reached when vP is delay of the comparator.
zero. This condition is detected by CMP1 which turns S2 Finally, Fig. 6a and Fig. 6b show the behaviour of the
off leaving node lx- floating until the voltage v2 gets higher proposed solution and of the passive voltage doubler when
than VO. At this time CMP2 switches S3 and S1'' on. The the function generator delivers a variable amplitude signal.
same comparator switches S3 and S1'' off when the current It is possible to see that the proposed solution is able to
which flows into inductance and into S3 crosses to zero. harvest the energy of peaks with amplitude lower than the
Finally phase 4 has to start when iP becomes negative. output voltage stored into CO.
Solution described in [11] has been used: the loop
implemented by operational amplifier OA1 and S1' forces
the drain to source voltage of this switch to the input offset
voltage of the operational amplifier, which was designed to
be 20 mV.
An enable signal is used to improve the response speed of
comparators CMP1 and CMP2 because they have to react
to signals whose speed is in the order of fR. The enable
signal increases the bias current of CMP1 during phase 2
and of CMP2 during phase 3. This signal has the purpose to
prevent an useless power consumption out of these phases.
The average current consumption of the whole driving
circuit is equal about 700 nA.

IV. EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS

Experimental characterization of the proposed circuit have
been done with a function generator and a capacitance so to
emulate the behaviour of the piezoelectric transducer. With
respect to the equivalent circuit shown in Fig. 2a its
Thevenin equivalent has been implemented. This was
composed of a cascade of a function generator, which gives
the equivalent output voltage of the transducer at no load
condition, and of a capacitance which is the equivalent
capacitance CP of the transducer itself.
Fig. 4 shows the comparison of the output voltages
obtained with the proposed front-end circuit and with a
passive voltage doubler; this was realized with BAT86
Schottky diodes. Function generator supplied a sinusoidal
input waveform with a peak amplitude equal to 1.5 V and
frequency equal to 50 Hz. A load resistance equal to
650 k has been connected in parallel with storage
capacitance CO.
It is possible to see that the proposed circuit works as a
passive one until the energy stored into CO is enough to
supply the active elements, this condition is reached at t1. Fig. 3 a) Block scheme of the implemented front-end circuit. b) Picture of
From this moment on, an interval is needed to switch the the diffused prototype.
bias circuit on. At time t2 driving circuit is fully on and the
output voltage reaches a value which is higher than the
input voltage and is a function of the whole power
consumption.

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 4 V. CONCLUSIONS
t1 t2
A novel front-end circuit for piezoelectric energy
3 scavenging systems is presented. It is able to harvest the
energy supplied by these transducers also when they are
excited with randomic vibrations.
2 The main advantage of this solution, with respect a
classical AC-DC converter, is that it is able to recover the
VO proposed solution
VO passive voltage doubler energy associated to transducer output voltages lower than
1
the voltage on storage capacitance CO. It exploits the
working principle of the inductive step-up converter.
0 A test chip was diffused using 5V CMOS
0 10 20 30 40 STMicroelectronics technology. Experimental results show
time [s] the effectiveness of this solution with respect to a classical
Fig. 4 Comparison between output voltages when function generator gives
a sinusoidal signal. AC-DC converter both when the mechanical vibration is
sinusoidal and when it is randomic.

V. References
[1] S. Roundy, "Energy Scavenging for Wireless Sensor Nodes with a
focus on Vibration to Electricity Conversion", PhD Thesis, The
University of California Berkeley, Spring 2003.
[2] S. Roundy et al., "Improving Power Output for Vibration-Based
Energy Scavengers", Pervasive Computing January-March 2005,
pp. 28-36, Published by the IEEE and IEEE ComSoc.
[3] T. T. Le, Jifeng Han, A. von Jouanne, K. Mayaram, T. S. Fiez,
"Piezoelectric Micro-Power Generation Interface Circuits" IEEE
Journal of Solid State Circuits, pp. 1411-1420, Vol. 41, NO. 6, June
2006.
[4] E. Dallago, G. Frattini, D. Miatton, G. Ricotti, G. Venchi,
"Self-Supplied Integrable High Efficiency AC-DC Converter for
Piezoelectric Energy Scavenging Systems", International
Fig. 5 Detail of the voltages VO, vP and v2 during the four phases. Time Symposium on Circuits and Systems ISCAS 2007, New Orleans
scale: 10 s/div; voltage scale for all traces 1 V/div. LO, 27-30 May 2007, pp. 1633-1636.
[5] Z. Dong, P. E. Allen, "Low-Voltage, Supply Independent CMOS
Bias Circuit", The 2002 45th Midwest Symposium on Circuits and
a) proposed solution Systems, 4-7 Aug 2002, pp. 568-570, Vol. 3.
VO [6] F. Peano, T. Tambosso, "Design and Optimization of a MEMS
Electret-Based Capacitive Energy-Scavenger", Journal of
Microelectromechanical Systems, pp. 429-435Vol. 14, NO. 3,
June 2005.
VP [7] M. Renaud, T. Sterken, P. Fiorini, R. Puers, K. Baert, C. van Hoof,
"Scavenging Energy from Human Body, Design of a Piezoelectric
Transducer", The 13th International Conference on Solid-State
Sensors, Actuators and Microsystems, Seoul, Korea, June 5-9,
2005, pp. 784-787.
[8] I. Stark, "Thermal Energy Harvesting with Thermo Life",
Proceedings of the International Workshop on Wearable and
Implantable Body Sensor Networks, BSN 2006, pp. 19-22, IEEE
Computer Society.
Function generator output
[9] J. Han, A. von Jouanne, T. Le, K. Mayaram, T. S. Fiez, "Novel
power conditioning Circuits for Piezoelectric Micro Power
Generators", APEC 2004, , February 2004, Vol. 3, pp. 1541-1546.
[10] E. Dallago, G. Frattini, D. Miatton, G. Ricotti, G. Venchi,
b) passive voltage doubler
"Integrable High-Efficiency AC-DC Converter for Piezoelectric
Energy Scavenging System", IEEE Conference on Portable
VO Devices, Orlando (FL), March, 2007.
[11] V. Bottarel, E. Dallago, G. Frattini, D. Miatton, G. Ricotti, G.
VP Venchi, "Active Self Supplied AC-DC Converter for Piezoelectric
Energy Scavenging Systems With Supply Independent Bias",
Accepted for Lecture at IEEE International Symposium on Circuits
and Systems, ISCAS 2008, Seattle, May 18-22, 2008.
[12] G. K. Ottman, H. F. Hofmann, G. A. Lesieutre "Optimized
Piezoelectric Energy Harvesting Circuit Using Step-Down
Converter in Discontinuous Conduction Mode", IEEE Transaction
on Power Electronics, VOL. 18, NO. 2, March 2003, pp. 696-702.
Function generator output

Fig. 6 a) VO, vP obtained with the proposed interface circuit; b) VO, vP

obtained with a passive voltage doubler. Red traces are the function
generator output. Time scale: 10 ms/div; voltage scale for all traces
1 V/div.

405