Piezoelectric Energy Harvesting From Road Under Three Typical Lateral Positions Of Vehicle

Piezoelectric energy harvesting (PEH) from road has been extensively studied for its potentiality to provide power for electronics in the traffic system. In these current studies, the vehicle is always assumed travelling along the road centerline, while the PEH units are assumed to be patched directly under the wheels of the vehicle. However, the vehicle in the real world usually deviates from the road centerline, and the PEH units may be not patched under the wheels. In this paper, we calculate the output power of PEH units embedded along the lateral orientation of the pavement under three typical lateral positions of vehicles with different vehicle speeds. The preferred embedded locations for PEH units under various lateral positions of vehicle with different speed can be found accordingly. The methods and results in this study may provide guidelines for selected optimal embedded locations for PEH units to harvest piezoelectric energy more efficiently.