Performance testing of piezoelectric energy harvester for extracting energy from vibration

In this work, several piezoelectric harvesters, either produced at the CNR-ISTEC laboratories or commercially available available off-the-shelf, were tested using a self-made test-rig where an aluminium plate was excited by a shaker. The cantilever piezoelectric devices are exposed to harmonic excitation and experimental results relative to the voltage and the power output are illustrated, including analysis of the linearity of the response at different levels of excitation. In this way, the most performing piezoelectric device under the testing conditions was identified.