The decreasing energy consumption of today's portable electronics has invoked the possibility of energy harvesting fromambient environment for self power supply. One common and simple method for energy harvesting is to utilize the directpiezoelectric effect. Compared to traditional piezoelectric materials such as lead zirconate titanate (PZT), macro-fibercomposites (MFC) are featured in their flexibility of large deformation. However, the energy generated by MFC is stillfar smaller than that required by electronics at present. In this paper, an energy harvesting system prototype with MFCpatches bonded to a cantilever beam is fabricated and tested. A finite element analysis (FEA) model is established toestimate the output voltage of MFC harvester. The energy accumulation procedure in the capacitor is simulated by usingthe electronic design automation (EDA) software. The simulation results are validated by the experimental ones.Subsequently, the electrical properties of MFC as well as the geometry configurations of the cantilever beam and MFCare parametrically studied by combining the FEA and EDA simulations for optimal energy harvesting efficiency.
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