This paper presents a topology for micro-power piezoelectric wind energy harvesting useful for developing selfpowered wireless sensor nodes. The features of the proposed topology compared with the existing piezoelectric/electromagnetic topologies are: (i) delivering power at high-voltage levels particularly at low-speed air-flows; (ii) starting operation at low cut-in speeds (about 1 m/s); and (iii) robust structure for operating at high-speed wind flows practically tested up to 20 m/s. The proposed topology consists of a small fan with embedded permanent magnets (PMs) and a piezoelectric beam with a PM proof mass which interacts with the PMs in the fan to harvest wind power. The paper also presents an analytical model and a design procedure to determine the number of PMs in the fan and their arrangements to maximize the captured power and minimize the cut-in speed. Using a prototype of the proposed topology, it is shown that the device starts capturing wind power at the wind speeds above 0.9 m/s. It is also shown that the suggested topology is at least 10% more efficient than the existing topologies in using piezoelectric materials and its total volume power density is higher than the other topologies.
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