Power density improvement of the power conditioning circuit for combined piezoelectric and electrodynamic generators

In this study, we report a power management circuit for a combined piezoelectric-electrodynamic generator. A piezoelectric element is bonded to a spring steel cantilever beam and a magnet, used as tip mass, oscillates through a coil. This principle creates the combined generator. A test setup has been created to automate the characterization of the piezoelectric generator and its power management circuit. Three different power management circuits for the piezoelectric part of the combined generator have been analysed: a bridge rectifier, an SSHI circuit with an external inductance and an SSHI circuit which utilizes the coil of the electrodynamic generator as circuit element. The three circuits are compared in terms of their output power, efficiency and power density. The SSHI circuit with an external inductance has the highest output power and efficiency, followed by the SSHI circuit with the electrodynamic generator coil. The power density of the bridge rectifier is the highest but for higher efficiency the power density of the SSHI circuit with the coil of the electromagnetic generator reaches the best results.