Wideband vibration energy harvester with high permeability magnetic material

A vibration energy harvester based on a high permeability cantilever beam was demonstrated, which overcomes the limitation of the existing approaches in output power and working bandwidth. Magnetostatic coupling between the vibrating highly permeable beam and bias magnetic field leads to maximized flux change and large induced voltage. The coexistence of magnetostatic and elastic potential energy results in the nonlinear oscillation with wide bandwidth. The harvester showed a maximum power of 74 mW and power density of 1.07 mW/cm(3) at 54 Hz under acceleration of 0.57 g (with g = 9.8 m/s(2)), and bandwidth of 10 Hz (or 18.5% of the operating frequency). (C) 2009 American Institute of Physics. [doi: 10.1063/1.3238319]