Abstract This review identifies a 75× improvement in harvested power achievable through optimal patch placement — challenging the conventional intuition of mounting piezoelectric transducers near the vibrating motor tip — and validates this finding across 23 independent studies spanning 18 years of UAV energy harvesting research (2008–2026). Small multirotor unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) waste significant mechanical vibration energy throughout every flight phase. Piezoelectric energy harvesting (PEH) — the direct conversion of structural bending strain into electrical charge — offers a passive, zero-drag, no-moving-parts pathway to recover this energy for onboard structural health monitoring (SHM) sensors, wireless nodes, or supplementary power storage. This article provides the first systematic, critical review of UAV-specific PEH, covering 23 studies across the period 2008–2026. Six thematic domains are critically examined: (i) the UAV vibration environment, including the non-monotonic power–motor-speed relationship unique to variable-throttle multirotors; (ii) piezoelectric materials, contrasting PZT ceramic patches and polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) polymer films; (iii) structural modelling, from open-source Python Euler–Bernoulli finite element analysis (FEA) to coupled computational fluid dynamics (CFD)–ANSYS workflows; (iv) harvester placement and geometry optimisation, where a critical evaluation of six independent studies confirms that high-strain root placement outperforms high-displacement tip placement by 12.7–75×; (v) broadband harvesting strategies applicable to the variable-RPM (revolutions per minute) environment; and (vi) power conditioning circuits and energy storage. Seven comparative tables and four original figures are provided. Three critically assessed convergent findings and four research gaps are identified, with a four-stage experimental roadmap proposed to advance the field from simulation to flight-proven systems.
SAYEED OMAR (2026) studied this question.