Enhanced vibrational energy harvesting using nonlinear stochastic resonance

Stochastic resonance has seen wide application in the physical sciences as a tool to understand weak signal amplification by noise. However, this apparently counter-intuitive phenomenon does not appear to have been exploited as a tool to enhance vibrational energy harvesting. In this note we demonstrate that by adding periodic forcing to a vibrationally excited energy harvesting mechanism, the power available from the device is apparently enhanced over a mechanism without periodic forcing. In order to illustrate this novel effect, a conceptually simple, but plausible model of such a device is proposed to explore the use of stochastic resonance to enhance vibrational energy harvesting. (C) 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.