Modeling and analysis of a horizontally-aligned energy harvester

Abstract

Abstract. In this paper we analyse an impact-type vibration energy harvester. In this study, the harvester is positioned so that the electromagnetic transducer moves along a horizontal linear guide when subjected to base excitations. The governing equation is a nonsmooth second order differential equation which cannot be solved analytically. Therefore, the averaging method is used to investigate its response. Experimental results are compared with the analytical solution to validate it. The results show that the existence of the nonlinearity in the system enables harvesting at low frequencies, increase the bandwidth, and enhances the output power significantly.

Wideband, low-frequency springless vibration energy harvesters: part I

“…Further, even though the SVEH architecture has shown promising results, to date there has been no systematic investigation of this class of harvesters. Our preliminary results [28][29][30][31][32] have shown that the SVEH response depends on whether the gravitational field affects the motions of the harvester. Even for horizontal SVEHs where energy exchange is less involved and gravitational effects are not present, we found that the response is not simply multivalued.…”

“…We proposed a new VEH architecture, the springless vibration energy harvester (SVEH) that eliminates completely the suspension spring for then harvesting oscillator [28]. We demonstrated electrostatic and electromagnetic implementations of this architecture [28][29][30][31][32] and realized low frequency harvesting with peak frequency as low as 6 Hz, harvesting of vibration as low as 0.05 g, and harvesting bandwidth as large as 6 Hz. Halim et al [33,34] and Haroun et al [35] followed with demonstrations and analyses of electromagnetic SVEHs showing that they can harvest low frequency vibrations in the range of 5-20 Hz with output power up to 0.1 mW and 2 mW, respectively.…”

“…Even for horizontal SVEHs where energy exchange is less involved and gravitational effects are not present, we found that the response is not simply multivalued. Rather, qualitatively different response regimes exist within the horizontal SVEH giving rise to distinct classes of behavior that can not be described using a single model [32].…”