Sensitivity analysis and energy harvesting for a self-powered piezoelectric sensor

Sensors play a crucial role in structural systems with concern over reliability/ failure issues. The development of wireless monitoring systems has been of great interest because wireless transmission has been proven as a convenient means to transmit signals while minimizing the use of many long wires. However, the wireless transmission systems need sufficient power to function properly. Conventionally, batteries are used as the power sources for the remote sensing systems. However, due to their limited lifetime, replacement of batteries has to be carried out periodically, which is inconvenient. In recent years, piezoelectric materials have been developed as sensing and actuating devices mostly, and power generators in some cases. In this article, a self-powered piezoelectric sensor is studied, in which one piece of piezoelectric element is simultaneously used as a sensor and a power generator under vibration environment. Concurrent design with piezoelectric materials in sensor and power generator is integrated with energy storage device. We evaluate sensing and power generating abilities individually and then energy harvesting performances. The potential of the piezoelectric sensor to power wireless transmission systems is discussed. Experimental efforts are carried out to study the feasibility of the self-powered piezoelectric sensor system.