Improving Power and Frequency Bandwidth of a Magnetic Spring Based Vibration Energy Harvester Using FR4 Spring-Guided Magnet

Abstract

This article introduces an enhanced magnetic spring based energy harvester design suitable for harvesting kinetic energy from vibrations that are characterized by low acceleration levels. The presented design consists of a levitated magnet, an FR4 spring-guided magnet and coils. Prototypes of the enhanced harvester design are fabricated and characterized experimentally. For comparison, a traditional magnetic spring based vibration energy harvester is fabricated and characterized experimentally. Results from experiments confirm the superiority of the proposed enhanced harvester design over the traditional harvester design. At 0.1g [m/s2], the peak power of the enhanced harvester reaches approximately 40 times the peak power generated by the traditional harvester. At this acceleration level both enhanced and traditional harvesters exhibit approximately 0.4 [Hz] frequency bandwidth. At 0.3g [m/s2] the improvement in power generated by the enhanced harvester is approximately 400% compared to the power generated by the traditional harvester while the frequency bandwidth increases by 80%.