Non-resonant electromagnetic wideband energy harvesting mechanism for low frequency vibrations

Abstract

A novel non-resonant energy harvesting mechanism with wide operation frequency band is investigated for collecting energy from low frequency ambient vibration. A free-standing magnet is packaged inside a sealed hole which is created by stacking five pieces of printed circuit board substrates embedded with multi-layer copper coils. This device was tested under various acceleration conditions. Considering the air damping effect, two types of device structures with different covered plates are investigated. For type I, one covered acrylic plate with drilled air holes and another plate with no holes are used to package the moving magnet. For type II, the middle hole is sealed by two acrylic plates with drilled air holes. The output voltage of type II is better than the one of type I at the same acceleration. When the energy harvester of type II is shook at 1.9 g acceleration along longitudinal direction of the hole, the 9 mV output voltage with 40 Hz bandwidth, i.e., from 40 to 80 Hz, is generated. The maximum output power within the ranges of 40-80 Hz, i.e., operation bandwidth, is measured as 0.4 μW under matched loading resistance of 50 Ω. Experimental results show that type I device has wider frequency bandwidth, higher center frequency and smaller output voltage than type II device because type I device experiences severe damping influence. © 2010 Springer-Verlag.