Harvesting of Kinetic Energy of the Droplets By MEMS Device

This paper proposes a MEMS energy harvester based on the damping vibration derived from liquid droplet collision impacts. Conventional harvesters are too large compared to the size of the water droplets. The size, spring constant and mass weight of the MEMS harvester can be designed arbitrarily according to the characteristics of the droplet. In addition, it can be easily arranged in an array as needed. Three types of piezoelectric MEMS energy harvesters are designed: simple cantilever, cantilever with a proof mass and width-tapered cantilever. The devices investigated in this paper satisfies the minimum operating voltage of commonly available power harvesting integrated circuits.