Global stabilization of high-energy resonance for a nonlinear wideband electromagnetic vibration energy harvester

This paper presents an experimental verification of a wideband nonlinear vibration energy harvester which has a globally stabilized high-energy resonating response. For the conventional linear vibration energy harvester, the maximum performance of the power generation and its bandwidth are in a relation of trade-off. The resonance frequency band can be expanded by introducing a Duffing-type nonlinear resonator in order to enable the harvester to generate larger electric power in a wider frequency range. However, since such nonlinear resonators often have multiple stable steady-state solutions in the resonance band, it is difficult for the nonlinear harvester to maintain the high performance of the power generation constantly. The principle of self-excitation and entrainment has been utilized to provide the global stability to the highest-energy solution by destabilizing other unexpected lower-energy solutions by introducing a switching circuit of the load resistance between positive and the negative values depending on the response amplitude of the oscillator. In this study, an experimental verification of this concept are carried out. An experimental prototype harvester is designed and fabricated and the performance of the proposed harvester is experimentally verified. It has been shown that the numerical and experimental results agreed very well, and the highest-energy solutions above the threshold value were successfully stabilized globally.