Piezoelectric Based Energy Harvesting

Group 3 March 11, 2008

Advisor: Bruce McNair Members: Arturo Dizon, Michael Ivey, Neil Patel, Mark Vizthum

I pledge my honor that I have abided by the Stevens Honor System.

Table of Contents I. Abstract .............................................................................................................. 1 1. Acknowledgement ......................................................................................... 1 II. Project Progress ............................................................................................... 1 Prototype Design Approach........................................................................... 1 Expected Functionality and Performance ...................................................... 3 Critical Components ...................................................................................... 3 Test Procedures ............................................................................................ 4 Results on Sub Systems ............................................................................... 5 Anticipated Design Risks ............................................................................... 6 Critical Technical Problems ........................................................................... 6 Analysis of Projects Cost/Time ...................................................................... 6 III. Conclusion ....................................................................................................... 7 IV. Appendices ........................................................................................................ Appendix A: Gantt/Cost/Task Chart ..........................................................A-1 Appendix B: Current Block Diagram.B-1

I. Abstract
The piezoelectric floor tile will be used in a sensing application for security purposes. The design will utilize ZigBee wireless transmission for communication between the tile and a remote computer. The tile will work in two different ways. During times in which security monitoring is not needed and people will be walking on the floor continuously, the tile will harvest the energy created by the piezoelectric strips. When being used as a security sensor, any step on the tile will create energy that is sent to a microprocessor and the microprocessor will send a short message to the remote computer noting that there was movement in the floor. The capacitor network in the energy harvesting circuitry is crucial as it will be used continuously power the microprocessor and the ZigBee transmitter. The circuitry must not only be efficient in charging, but cannot lose its charge too fast as it will need to power the circuitry for potentially long periods of time without recharge.

I.1. Acknowledgement
Traditional ceramic piezoelectric materials are very brittle, and have low electrical energy outputs per unit strain. Materials research and technology improvements have changed the perspective entirely, and the application of piezoelectrics to a multitude of new applications is becoming an achievable possibility in light of these technological breakthroughs. Some examples include active smart sporting goods, next generation aircraft, automobiles, motorcycles, wireless sensors, acoustical equipment, sports gear, industrial equipment, infrastructure, apparel and more. A company by the name of Advanced Cerametrics (ACI) in Lambertville, NJ, is a pioneer in this technology breakthrough. They produce a composite material with an aluminum substrate, and PZT piezoelectric fibers spun into the material. ACIs composite materials generate ten times the amount of power from mechanical energy as other flexible forms of piezo materials, and life in the range of millions of cycles. A working relationship with Advanced Cerametrics has already been established, and they will function as a partner, consultant and material supplier for the duration of this project.

II. Project Progress

Prototype Design Approach
As the final design materializes, the group has moved on to building the prototype. A prototype is defined as, an original type, form, or instance serving as a basis or standard for later stages and an original, full-scale, and usually working model of a new product. Since the floor tile design uses new innovative PZT fibers to collect electricity from a person walking, such a system has never been made or commercialized by

others, as supported by an extensive state of the art study and patent search. Therefore, building a prototype is essential to verify that the product will work as designed and to search for any possible flaws and problems. The main objective of building a prototype is to observe how much vibration a footstep can give to the piezoelectric strips mounted inside. This is crucial as electricity generated is proportional to the vibrations of strips. Parameters that contribute to amplitude and duration of vibrations are dependent upon the Mechanical Engineering groups design of the floor tile. Some of the considerations that the ME group needs to make include: mounting of strips to the main floor tile; type of shim used either steel or aluminum; amount of weights put on the end of strip to enhance vibrations; possibility of adding springs to amplify vibrations; and sub floor material and thickness put under the main floor tile. The prototype will allow the group to see how these factors affect the amount of electric power created, and they must be optimized to obtain the maximum amount of power, with a special need to exceed the energy demands in order to power the microprocessor and wireless transmitter. The group has three basic circuitry components to the piezoelectric surveillance floor tile: energy harvesting, microprocessor, and ZigBee (wireless). The group is treating each of these components by itself, and once each is successfully work, the group will be integrating the components together. At this stage of the project, the group has completed the design and testing of the energy harvesting circuitry and the testing of the ZigBee transmitters and receivers, and is now working to program the microprocessor and integrate the microprocessor and ZigBee components with the energy harvesting circuitry.

Energy Harvesting:
The energy harvesting circuitry consists of full-wave bridge rectifier, capacitor, and resistor. The rectifier is necessary to convert the alternating current from the piezoelectric material to a direct current. The full-wave bridge rectifier uses a Wheatstone Bridge- like diamond diode configuration, and as such, the signal must pass through two diodes regardless of which half wave the AC source supplies. At the output of the rectifier, a capacitor is run to ground in parallel with a resistor running to ground; this smoothes out the pulsating DC to make it more stable. To store the rectified signal from the piezoelectric material, a single large capacitor, on the order of 1 Farad, or an array of smaller capacitors at approximately 1000uF will be used depending on the power generated by the piezoelectric strips, which is needed to power the microprocessor and ZigBee components.

Microprocessor:
The microprocessor circuitry consists of a power source harvested from the piezoelectric material, programming logic for the sensing the stepping on the floor tile, and outputting a signal to the ZigBee transmitter. Some of the current issues with the microprocessor that are holding the group from creating the algorithm for stepping on the floor tile and configuring the processor when to be in sleep mode and when not to be are that the original microprocessor selected last semester does not have an analog to digital converter and the unknown voltage value that the piezoelectric material is going to output. The first issue was simply resolved by choosing a microprocessor in the same family except one that has an A/D converter. The second issue is being resolved by 2

either creating a voltage dividing circuit to step down the voltage generated from the piezoelectric material or by using a power transformer that can take up to a range of voltages from the piezoelectric material and output at least 12.6V which is needed to drive the microprocessor and ZigBee components. The group is in the process of testing out which method is the best one for the project which is contingent the energy stored in the piezoelectric strips.

Wireless Transmitter:
The ZigBee circuitry consists of XBee transmitter, receiver, and USB interface board. The XBee transmitter will be wired to the circuitry of the microprocessor such that the microprocessor sends a signal to the transmitter when the floor tile is stepped on. The receiver will be connected to a laptop through the USB interface board. The two issues with ZigBee that remain are how to get an UART signal to the XBee transmitter and similarly as with the microprocessor, how to power the transmitter. The group has decided that unless another tile is going to be added to the project the ZigBee will operate in point to point mode. This point to point mode network has been tested with two ZigBee transceivers and the group was able to send messages from one ZigBee transceiver to the other and vice versa. The biggest issue is that the XBee transmitter needs an UART signal to know when to send a signal to the XBee receiver, which will be hopefully resolved upon successful programming of the microprocessor to send a UART signal. As for powering the XBee transmitter, it will be resolved in the same manner as the powering for the microprocessor is handled.

Expected Functionality and Performance

Depending on the outcome of iterative testing process that will be carried out to evaluate the performance of prototype, the main function of the floor tile might be modified. Until now the two functions of the floor tile were to send wireless signals when the tile was stepped on and to charge capacitors to power the microprocessor and wireless transmitter making it a completely self-powered. However, if the prototype testing reveals that the piezoelectric voltage generated from a step on the floor tile is not sensitive enough or too sensitive to use it as a sensor to detect an intruder, the function of the piezo strips would be concentrated only to charge capacitors during daytime when heavy pedestrian traffic is expected, and have separate sensors for detection purposes at night time. Also, if during testing, the group finds that the ME design of the floor tile is insufficient in vibrating the piezoelectric strips enough to store the necessary energy needed for the microprocessor and wireless transmitter, the group will need to use an external source of power such as a battery.

Critical Components
A PIC16F877A Microprocessor used for the sensing if the tile got stepped on, and providing the ZigBee with power

The 1 Farad capacitor rated at 5.5 volts for storing the charge coming from the piezoelectric strips, and to provide power to the microprocessor during times when the tile is being used for its sensing capabilities

The transformer will take the potentially high voltage of the piezoelectric strips with low current into a low voltage application with a higher current. This will prevent voltages from getting too high on the capacitor, and made it much easier to source capacitors. The transformer may not need to be used depending on how much voltage we receive from the Mechanical Engineering groups tile. An IC of rectifiers will take the AC output of the transformer and turn it into usable DC that will charge the capacitor. There will be one rectifier per piezoelectric strip that will all join together for a summation of DC outputs. A ZigBee transmitter will transmit a signal from the tile to a central computer (in a security office or the like) where the receiver will be kept. The transmitter will send a message to the receiver notifying the user that the tile was stepped on.

Test Procedures
In order to test the voltage output from the tiles piezoelectric strip with the weight on the end, we had to use a multimeter since the oscilloscopes could not pick up the AC voltage from the strip. This procedure gives us a general idea of what kind of input we will see into our circuitry per foot step, and to tell the Mechanical Engineering group whether their design supplies sufficient voltage for the design to work. In order to test the capacitors charging and discharging characteristics, the group applied a 6.4 volts peak to peak sinusoidal source at 25 hertz through the energy harvesting circuitry to the capacitor and connected a multimeter to the voltage divider off 4

the capacitor to see how long it would take to charge the capacitor. After it reached 4 volts, the voltage source was removed to watch the rate of its discharge. There has been little testing on the capacitor since we were only recently able to source it. To date, we have done very limited testing on the microprocessor as we have had to switch compilers to find one that would be easy for us to program. In place of the capacitor, we are using a +5V source from a power supply. To test our program functionality, we have implemented LEDs to see if we can power specific pins up, and utilize delays. Throughout the programming, we will use these LEDs for troubleshooting purposes. In the coming weeks, we will charge the capacitor, and run the microprocessor and ZigBee transmitter off of the capacitor. There has also been limited testing on the ZigBee since the microprocessor programming to output the USART signal has not been completed as of yet. However, the group has been able to perform point-to-point transmission between the transmitter and receivers using the demo circuitry from Maxstream. To test the transmitter while in the circuit, we will first power the transmitter with the power supply and attempt to send a test message. Once we can successfully send the message from the microprocessor, we will run the circuitry entirely off of the 1F capacitor.

Results on Sub Systems

The capacitor energy storing circuit was tested to determine the actual energy yield of the circuit. The input was an alternating signal provided from a function generator with an amplitude of 6.4 volts and a frequency of 25 hertz. This input was connected directly to the full-wave bridge rectifier, which outputs to a capacitor and voltage divider that are in parallel. The capacitor value was 1 Farad and the voltage divider had a 1 to 100 ratio using a 1Kohm and 100Kohm resistor in series. The results yielded a slow charge of the capacitor to roughly 4 volts. The function generator was then turned off. The voltage dropped quickly to 3.5 volts, but took a long time to fully discharge. The capacitor energy storing circuit was tested using the floor tile from the mechanical group as the system input. The floor tile was first connected directly to the rectifier. Members from the groups walked over the tile to simulate common human traffic. The output yield across the first resistor in the voltage divider was measured at 1.5 mV. Next, the same setup was tested with a transformer in between the floor tile and rectifier. According to contacts at Advanced Cerametrics, the piezoelectric strip could potentially generate hundreds of volts. To counter this we purchased a transformer that is typically used to down convert a 110 volts 60 hertz signal to a lower voltage. The original floor tile design by the mechanical engineering group was used to provide the input. It was passed through the transformer and then through the rectifier to the capacitor and voltage divider. The voltage was measured across the first resistor of the voltage divider at a value of 0.7 mV. Roughly half the voltage found without the transformer. The ZigBee transmitter has also been tested to assure that we can send a signal to indicate the tile has been stepped on. The group has decided that unless another tile is going to be added to the project the ZigBee will operate in point to point mode. This point

to point mode network has been tested with two ZigBee transceivers and the group was able to send messages from one ZigBee transceiver to the other and vice versa.

Anticipated Design Risks

A major design risk that in the future involves programming the microprocessor to detect that the tile has been stepped on. In order to achieve this, the microprocessor needs to be programmed to perform tasks that may be difficult to implement. The specific processor being used is new to the members of our group, and as a result will have a learning curve associated. The microprocessor needs to detect an input, wake up from sleep mode, read an analog input from the piezoelectric strip, determine if tile was actually stepped on, send a signal to the ZigBee transmitter, and return to sleep mode. To manage this risk the group has gone through three compilers to find one that best suits our needs. Also, some simple programs have been written to become more familiar manipulating the processor. Another anticipated design risk of our project is getting the ZigBee transmitter to successfully transmit a signal. The issue is that the ZigBee transmitter needs a UART signal to know when to send a signal to the ZigBee receiver. To manage this problem, the group is looking to see if the microprocessor has circuitry built in it to send such a signal or else the group will have to take the voltage signal provided by the microprocessor and convert it to a UART signal. The group has already started to gather the necessary parts that would be needed to be ordered to create the UART signal.

Critical Technical Problems

The most critical technical problem encountered so far is a low power output generated by the mechanical engineering groups floor tile. The piezoelectric material was supposed to produce roughly a 50 volt output at its resonant frequency. As stated earlier in the report, the floor tile only produced 1.5 mV. This output is far too small to power a microprocessor and ZigBee transmitter. The power output appears to be low, because the piezoelectric strip does not deflect enough. In order to get a better output, the mechanical group needs to make another design which will cause the piezoelectric strip to deflect further and at a faster rate. To manage this problem, the group brought the mechanical engineering group to the design lab and showed them the poor output. The mechanical engineering group is now looking into possible solutions to increase the output voltage.

Analysis of Projects Cost/Time

Aside from minor additions to the budget such as an additional proto board ($1.75), a pack of LEDs ($1.95), a transformer ($11.12) and additional capacitors ($9.75), the group still managed to remain under the budget of $250. The group also was able to acquire some PIC Microcontrollers from a professor at no charge and free software 6

compilers which lessened the overall costs. With shipping and handling charges the additional expenses to our budget was roughly around $50. From the submission of this report to Design Day, the group should no longer need to make any additional purchases that would put the group over the budget.

III. Conclusion
The piezoelectric floor tile will be used in a sensing application for security purposes. The design will utilize ZigBee wireless transmission for communication between the tile and a remote computer. The tile will work in two different ways. During times in which security monitoring is not needed and people will be walking on the floor continuously, the tile will harvest the energy created by the piezoelectric strips by storing the energy in capacitors. When being used as a security sensor, any step on the tile will create energy that is sent to a microprocessor and the microprocessor will send a short message to the remote computer noting that there was movement in the floor. The project is currently on schedule and should remain that way through the rest of the semester barring any major setbacks.

IV. Appendices
Appendix A: Gantt/Cost/Task Chart

A-1

Appendix B: Current Block Diagram

Microprocessor in Sleep Mode

Input from Piezoelectric Strips

Wake up Microprocessor Yes Is voltage higher than alerting threshold? No

Supply +5V to ZigBee transmitter

Send message to receiving computer alerting tile was stepped on via ZigBee

B-1