Energy Harvesting from Engine Induced Vibrations in aSmall UAV

At presented work, energy harvesting from vibration at airframe due to internal combustionengine excitation at an unmanned aerial vehicle has been investigated. The considered energy harvesteris a piezoelectric three layers beam that consists of two piezoelectric layers and a metal substratelayer with a proof mass at free end. Using equivalent electrical circuit model, and by applyinggenetic algorithm, optimized dimensions have been presented for the harvesters. Modelling andanalysing of optimized energy harvester with ANSYS software is presented and results have beencompared with analytical method. Results indicate that finite element and analytical method have anacceptable adaptation. Also, results show that piezoelectric energy harvester can harvest 4.4 mwpowers and 9.3 v voltage at optimum resistance of 10kohm that is sufficient for power sensor nodes and other electronic equipment

Keywords:

Energy Harvesting , Unmanned Aerial Vehicle , Piezoelectric , Finite Element Method , Genetic Algorithm