Comparative performance of voltage multipliers for MEMS vibration-based energy harvesters

Abstract

This paper investigates by numerical simulation the performance of an electrostatic vibration energy harvester when it is electrically configured in two different diode-capacitor multiplier topologies. The complete lumped-model of an overlap-varying generator along with power electronic interface circuit is constructed for analysis using a crcuit simulator. Parasitic capacitance of the transducers and nonideal diode traits such as leakage current and junction capacitance are incorporated. We find that both configurations are able to efficiently operate with a ratio of capacitance variation much lower than 2, which overcomes a challenging obstacle of MEMS-based devices. Other advantages and disadvantages of the two topologies are compared and discussed.