Energy harvesting: Resonance tuning boosts efficiency

Leti and SYMME* developed a standout piezoelectric energy harvester. The researchers increased bandwidth by an impressive 446% and achieved near-state-of-the-art total efficiency of 94%. The device’s excellent performance can be attributed to a smart interface that dynamically tunes the resonance frequency to the environment’s vibration frequency. This allows the device to harvest energy beyond what its intrinsic vibrational characteristics would allow. It takes around 1µW to tune the resonance frequency, but the device harvests between a hundred and a thousand times that.

The energy harvester, which will target the aeronautics and automotive industries, is protected by three patents. It is also possible to develop a miniature version of the system for medical applications. This novel device is simple enough to give batteries a run for their money: It requires no initial calibration or maintenance.

Contact: adrien.morel@cea.fr

*Savoie Mont-Blanc University

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