Electrostrictive polymer harvesting using a nonlinear approach

This paper presents a new application of the ‘synchronized switch harvesting on inductor’ (SSHI) applied to electrostrictive polymers for DC energy harvesting. It is demonstrated that this technique is very effective for harvesting energy from ambient vibrations using electrostrictive polymers. The method consists in adding an electrical switching device connected in parallel with the electrostrictive elements. The switch triggers on maxima or minima of the voltage and realizes a voltage inversion through an inductor. It is shown that, when applied to electrostrictive polymers, the SSHI technique increases the harvesting process efficiency by 700% compared to the classical approach.