An inductorless piezoelectric energy harvesting interface circuit using gyrator induced voltage flip technique

Purpose The purpose of this research paper is to explore the possibility to enhance the power transfer from piezoelectric energy harvester (PEH) source to the load. As the proposed gyrator-induced voltage flip technique (GIVFT) does not require bulky components such as physical inductors, it is easily realizable in small integrated circuits (IC) package thereby offering performance benefits, reducing area overhead and providing cost benefits for constrained self-powered autonomous Internet-of-Things (IoT) applications. Design/methodology/approach This paper presents an inductorless interface circuit for PEH. The proposed technique is called GIVFT and is demonstrated using active elements. The authors use gyrator to induce voltage flip at the output side of PEH to enhance the charge extraction from PEH. The proposed technique uses the current-voltage (I-V) relationship of gyrator to get appropriate phasor response necessary to induce the voltage flip at the output of PEH to gain power transfer enhancement at the load. Findings The experimental results show the efficacy of the GIVFT realization for enhanced power extraction. The authors have compared their proposed design with popular earlier reported interface circuits. Experimentally measured performance improvement is 1.86×higher than the baseline comparison of full-wave bridge rectifier circuit. The authors demonstrated a voltage flip using GIVFT to gain power transfer improvement in piezoelectric energy harvesting. Originality/value To the best of the authors’ knowledge, pertaining to the field of PEH, this is the first reported GIVFT based on the I-V relationship of the gyrator. The proposed approach could be useful for constrained self-powered autonomous IoT applications, and it could be of importance in guiding the design of new interface circuits for PEH.