Research on the Directional Adaptability of a Self-Adaptive Energy Harvester

Abstract

With the continuous development of wireless sensor networks (WSNs), multi-directional energy harvesting technology has received widespread attention from scholars. In order to evaluate the performance of multi-directional energy harvesters, this paper uses a directional self-adaptive piezoelectric energy harvester (DSPEH) as an example, defines the direction of the excitation in three-dimensional space, and studies the influence of excitations on the key parameters of the DSPEH. The rolling angle and pitch angle are used to define complex excitations in three-dimensional space, and the dynamic response of the excitation changes in a single direction and multiple directions is discussed. It is noteworthy that this work presents the concept of “Energy Harvesting Workspace” to describe the working ability of a multi-directional energy harvesting system. The workspace is expressed by the excitation angle and voltage amplitude, and energy harvesting performance is evaluated by the volume-wrapping method and area-covering method. The DSPEH exhibits good directional adaptability in two-dimensional space (rolling direction); in particular, when the mass eccentricity coefficient is r = 0 mm, 100% of the workspace in two-dimensional space is obtained. The total workspace in three-dimensional space depends entirely on the energy output in the pitch direction.