Tools for analytical and numerical analysis of electrostatic vibration energy harvesters: Application to a continuous mode conditioning circuit

Abstract

This paper reports the application of different analytical tools to a basic continuous conditioning (CC) circuit for electrostatic vibration energy harvesters (e-VEHs). We address the fundamental issues of this conditioning circuit and give design advice that enhances the performance of e-VEHs employing this circuit. This circuit is widely used for harvesters with or without an electret layer. Despite its wide use, its fundamental problems have been weakly addressed even for simple configurations of e-VEHs since it is impossible to solve the corresponding equations in closed form. As a consequence, appropriate semi-analytical methods that provide an insight into the physics of the system are required. © Published under licence by IOP Publishing Ltd.