Energy harvesting; that is, harvesting small amounts of energy from environmentalsources such as solar, air flow or vibrations using small-scale (≈1cm3) devices, offers theprospect of powering portable electronic devices such as GPS receivers and mobilephones, and sensing devices used in remote applications: wireless sensor nodes, withoutthe use of batteries. Numerous studies have shown that power densities of energyharvesting devices can be hundreds of µW; however the literature also reveals that powerrequirements of many electronic devices are in the mW range. Therefore, a key challengefor the successful deployment of energy harvesting technology remains, in many cases,the provision of adequate power. This thesis aims to address this challenge byinvestigating two methods of enhancing the power output of a piezoelectric-basedvibration energy harvesting device. Cont/d.
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