Self-powered piezoelectric energy harvester for bicycle

Powering from ambient energies various electric accessories on bicycles like lamps, on-board computer, communication devices, or even wireless sensor nodes will avoid the use of batteries and improves the availability of these devices when the bicycle is not used for a long time. This paper reports on vibration resources detected in a bicycle as a potential energy source for supplying these on-board devices. The measurements showed that the bandwidth of the energy vibration is reduced with speed. For this application, a piezoelectric vibration harvester was designed and equipped with a self-powered voltage switching interface circuit. Within the field test, it is demonstrated that sufficient energy is harvested.