Packaging strategy for maximizing the performance of a screen printed piezoelectric energy harvester

This paper reports the extended design and simulation of a screen printed piezoelectric energy harvester. The proposed design was based on a previous credit card sized smart tag sensor node, and packages the power conditioning circuit in the free space above the tungsten proof mass layer. This approach enables electronic components to be mounted onto the cantilever beam, which provides additional weight at the tip of the cantilever structure. The design structure contains a T-shape cantilever beam with size of 47 mm x 30 mm x 0.85 mm which is fabricated using screen printing. ANSYS simulation results predict the revised architecture can generate 421.9 mu W approximately twice of the RMS power produced by the original design along with a higher open-circuit RMS Voltage of 8.0 V while the resonant frequency is dropped to 53.4 Hz.