Experimental admittance-based system identification for equivalent circuit modeling of piezoelectric energy harvesters on a plate

Equivalent circuit modeling is a useful tool for piezoelectric energy harvesters to analyze the electromechanical response of the system especially when complex host structure geometries and nonlinear circuits are used in the harvesting systems. Previous studies have used analytical and finite element models to estimate the equivalent circuit model (ECM) of piezoelectric energy harvesters (PEH) on beam- and plate-like structures. However, those methods require accurate analytical and/or numerical representation of the PEH. Here, we present an experimental admittance-based system identification method that allows us to identify the multi-modal ECM without prior knowledge of the host plate's geometry and/or physical properties of the piezoelectric patches. Using the proposed experimental method, we obtain the electromechanical frequency–response admittance of the PEH system at each vibration mode, and thereby, we calculate the equivalent system parameters. Additionally, a novel experimental technique is presented for the identification of the equivalent voltage sources associated with each LCR branch of the ECM. The derived ECM is experimentally validated for single and multiple piezoelectric patch harvesters on a plate. The electrical frequency response of the system has been validated for standard AC and rectifier circuits using SPICE software. Overall, the proposed admittance-based system identification is an accurate and robust method to identify the equivalent system parameters, making it a practical and reliable tool for modeling piezoelectric energy harvesting systems.