Grant: Idea to Innovation

Piezoelectric energy harvesters are growing more popular for a variety of biomedical, industrial, military and consumer energy harvesting applications. According to a market study by IDTechEx, energy harvesting represented an emerging $0.7B market in 2010, with the potential to grow to $4.4B by 2021. There have been several attempts to produce an ""optimum"" piezoelectric vibration-driven energy harvester systems for this market, but few standardized designs exist that are highly customizable for a specific consumer application. Our team has recently achieved a prototype for a proof of concept of a piezoelectric energy harvester producing 13-25 µW, with operating actuation bandwidth of 120-1000 Hz. The goal of this I2I Phase ""I"" is to develop a plug-and-play prototype of a piezoelectric energy low frequency harvester to satisfy the existing market need of extended battery life for consumer electronics. This will be accomplished through further optimization of the current energy harvester design, using a more flexible structural material and improving integration and packaging schemes to increase the power generation of the energy harvester to 75-125 µW within the lower 30-300 Hz operational frequency bandwidth. On the successful completion of this I2I Phase ""I"", the next step is to apply for I2I Phase ""II"" with a specific commercialization plan and partner.