Ambient vibration energy harvesters: A review on nonlinear techniques for performance enhancement

Micro vibration energy harvesters have received much attention due to their potential application of low power wireless sensor networks and embedded systems. This paper studies three mechanisms to scavenge the ambient vibration energy, discusses the power management circuit and the application of the converter, investigates the prospective development and ongoing challenges in MEMS-based vibration energy harvester.

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A Novel Design and Performance Results of An Electrically Tunable Piezoelectric Vibration Energy Harvester (TPVEH)

Journal of Composites Science ◽

10.3390/jcs4020039 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 4 (2) ◽

pp. 39

Author(s):

Sreekumari Raghavan ◽

Rishi Gupta

Keyword(s):

Resonant Frequency ◽

Simulation Software ◽

The Body ◽

Ambient Vibration ◽

Vibration Energy ◽

Metal Composite ◽

Vibration Energy Harvester ◽

Energy Harvesters ◽

Novel Design ◽

Piezoelectric Vibration

The need for energy harvesters for various applications, including structural health monitoring (SHM) in remote and inaccessible areas, is well established. Energy harvesters can utilize the ambient vibration of the body on which they are mounted to generate energy, thus eliminating the need for an external source of power. One such type of harvester is designed using piezoelectric materials and using a cantilever type set-up. However, the challenge associated with cantilever-based Piezoelectric Vibration Energy Harvesters (PVEH) is that its output power reduces when the ambient vibration frequency deviates from the resonant frequency of the harvester. This calls for a mechanism to tune its resonant frequency to match with the ambient frequency. This article presents an innovative design of an electrically tunable PVEH. The PVEH is integrated with an Ionic Polymer Metal Composite (IPMC) as an actuator that loads the cantilever beam, changing the stiffness of the beam. IPMC utilizes low power, and the authors demonstrate in this paper that a net gain of power can be achieved by this novel design. For the configuration used, it is experimentally proven that a frequency shift from 5.9 Hz to 8 Hz is achieved with three actuation values. Typical power output from the harvester is 52.03 µW when the power spent on actuation is only 0.765 µW. On-going modeling of this system using simulation software is expected to lead to further optimization and prototyping of design.

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Load Resistance Optimization of a Broadband Bistable Piezoelectric Energy Harvester for Primary Harmonic and Subharmonic Behaviors

Sustainability ◽

10.3390/su13052865 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 13 (5) ◽

pp. 2865 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Sungryong Bae ◽

Pilkee Kim

Keyword(s):

Energy Harvester ◽

Load Resistance ◽

Oscillation Period ◽

Ambient Vibration ◽

Ambient Vibrations ◽

Frequency Dependency ◽

Energy Harvesters ◽

Piezoelectric Energy ◽

Optimal Load ◽

Bistable Energy Harvester

In this study, optimization of the external load resistance of a piezoelectric bistable energy harvester was performed for primary harmonic (period-1T) and subharmonic (period-3T) interwell motions. The analytical expression of the optimal load resistance was derived, based on the spectral analyses of the interwell motions, and evaluated. The analytical results are in excellent agreement with the numerical ones. A parametric study shows that the optimal load resistance depended on the forcing frequency, but not the intensity of the ambient vibration. Additionally, it was found that the optimal resistance for the period-3T interwell motion tended to be approximately three times larger than that for the period-1T interwell motion, which means that the optimal resistance was directly affected by the oscillation frequency (or oscillation period) of the motion rather than the forcing frequency. For broadband energy harvesting applications, the subharmonic interwell motion is also useful, in addition to the primary harmonic interwell motion. In designing such piezoelectric bistable energy harvesters, the frequency dependency of the optimal load resistance should be considered properly depending on ambient vibrations.

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Multimodal pizza-shaped piezoelectric vibration-based energy harvesters

Journal of Intelligent Material Systems and Structures ◽

10.1177/1045389x211006910 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 1045389X2110069

Author(s):

Virgilio J Caetano ◽

Marcelo A Savi

Keyword(s):

Energy Harvesting ◽

Frequency Spectrum ◽

Optimization Procedure ◽

Single Mode ◽

Ambient Vibration ◽

Vibration Source ◽

Element Analysis ◽

Energy Harvesters ◽

Piezoelectric Energy ◽

Harvesting Systems

Energy harvesting from ambient vibration through piezoelectric devices has received a lot of attention in recent years from both academia and industry. One of the main challenges is to develop devices capable of adapting to diverse sources of environmental excitation, being able to efficiently operate over a broadband frequency spectrum. This work proposes a novel multimodal design of a piezoelectric energy harvesting system to harness energy from a wideband ambient vibration source. Circular-shaped and pizza-shaped designs are employed as candidates for the device, comparing their performance with classical beam-shaped devices. Finite element analysis is employed to model system dynamics using ANSYS Workbench. An optimization procedure is applied to the system aiming to seek a configuration that can extract energy from a broader frequency spectrum and maximize its output power. A comparative analysis with conventional energy harvesting systems is performed. Numerical simulations are carried out to investigate the harvester performances under harmonic and random excitations. Results show that the proposed multimodal harvester has potential to harness energy from broadband ambient vibration sources presenting performance advantages in comparison to conventional single-mode energy harvesters.

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Energy Harvesting for Autonomous Sensing

Key Engineering Materials ◽

10.4028/www.scientific.net/kem.347.405 ◽

2007 ◽

Vol 347 ◽

pp. 405-410 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Daniel J. Inman ◽

Justin Farmer ◽

Benjamin L. Grisso

Keyword(s):

Power Source ◽

Ambient Vibration ◽

Vibration Energy ◽

Computational Algorithms ◽

Wireless Power ◽

Sensing System ◽

Autonomous Sensor ◽

Damage Monitoring ◽

Piezoelectric Elements ◽

External Connections

Autonomous, wireless structural health monitoring is one of the key goals of the damage monitoring industry. One of the main roadblocks to achieving autonomous sensing is removing all wiring to and from the sensor. Removing external connections requires that the sensor have its own power source in order to be able to broadcast/telemetry information. Furthermore if the sensor is to be autonomous in any way, it must contain some sort of computing and requires additional power to run computational algorithms. The obvious choice for wireless power is a battery. However, batteries often need periodical replacement. The work presented here focuses on using ambient energy to power an autonomous sensor system and recharge batteries and capacitors used to run an active sensing system. In particular, we examine methods of harvesting energy to run sensor systems from ambient vibration energy using piezoelectric elements.

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