Impact-Based Electromagnetic Energy Harvester with High Output Voltage under Low-Level Excitations

To expand the applications of vibrational energy harvesters (VEHs) as power sources of wireless sensor nodes, it is of significance to improve the scavenging efficiency for the broadband, low-frequency, and low-level vibrational energy. The output voltages of electromagnetic vibrational energy harvesters (EMVEHs) are usually low, which complicates the power management circuit by an indispensable voltage boosting element. To this end, an impact-based non-resonant EMVEH mainly composed of an outer frame and an inner frame on rollers is proposed. Numerical simulations based on a mathematical model of the harvester are conducted to analyze the effects of structural parameters on the output performance. Under base excitation of 0.1 and 0.3 (where g is the gravitational acceleration, 1 g = 9.8 m·s−2), the experimental maximum root mean square voltages of a harvester prototype across a resistor of 11 kΩ are as high as 7.6 and 16.5 V at 6.0 and 8.5 Hz, respectively, with the maximum output powers of 5.3 and 24.8 mW, or the power densities of 54.6 and 256 μW cm−3. By using a management circuit without a voltage boosting element, a wireless sensor node driven by the prototype can measure and transmit the temperature and humidity every 20 s under base excitation of 0.1 g at 5.4 Hz.