Standalone Power Management System for Flexible Piezo Electric Nano Generators (PENG) Based on the Co-Polymer P(VDF:TrFE)

This paper presents the design and manufacturing of a PENG based on flexible PVDF. The power management system (PMS) used to convert its ac voltage into a dc one, providing MPPT is presented. The system is tested to cover two use cases, namely energy storage in a battery and in a standalone configuration. The PMS is able to produce adjustable output voltages ranging from 0.8V to 1.5V. With a regulated 1.5V the PMS is capable of producing up to 900nJ of energy from bending single deformation of the harvester. The PMS can harvest as low as 1.4μW from the PENG. A low power MPPT system, consisting of a single comparator is shown. In addition, insights about selecting optimal input capacitance of the PMS under different use cases is given in this paper. The MPPT technique improved the harvested output power by up to 44%.