We propose a design for an energy harvester which has the potential to harvest vibrational energy over a broad range of ambient frequencies. The device uses two flexible ceramic piezoelectric elements arranged in a buckled configuration in the absence of vibrations. Experimental data show that this design allows enhanced harvesting of energy relative to a comparable cantilever design, both for ...

This paper presents a piezoelectric energy harvester using an eccentric cylinder undergoing bending–torsion vibration in low-speed water. It can harvest energy from water using vortex-induced vibration (VIV). A distributed parameter beam model with respect to the motion of the piezoelectric beam was established based on Euler–Bernoulli beam theory. The governing coupled equations of the harvest...

This paper focuses on improving the energy conversion process for low-voltage energy harvester powered wireless sensors by optimising the conversion stages for pulsed sensor operation. The proposed circuit has been designed to operate efficiently with both a low-voltage low-power energy harvester source and a low-power pulsed load. This ensures that continuous conversion losses are kept to a mi...

This paper introduces the basics of energy harvesters and demonstrates two specific vibratory-type energy harvesters developed at the University of Hyogo. The fabrication and evaluation results of the vibratory-type energy harvesters, which employ electrostatic and electromagnetic mechanisms, are described. The aim of developing these devices is to realize a power source for an autonomous human...

The harvesting of processing tomatoes is fully mechanised and it is well known that during harvest, fruits are subjected to mechanical stress causing physical injuries, including skin punctures, pulp and cell rupture. Some wireless sensors have been used for research during recent years with the main purpose of reducing the quality loss of tomato fruits by diminishing the number and intensity o...

The purpose of this thesis is the development and analysis of applications for ionic polymers as energy harvesting devices. The specific need is a self-contained energy harvester to supply renewable power harvested from ambient vibrations to a wireless sensor. Ionic polymers were investigated as mechanical to electrical energy transducers. An ionic polymer device was designed to harvest energy ...

This paper reports a new functional design and modeling of a vibration energy harvester composed from a mechanical resonator (MEMS), capacitive transducer and a conditioning circuit based on the BUCK DCDC converter architecture. The basic configuration of conditioning circuit from [1][2] is enhanced with two major features for the power management allowing, firstly, to adapt dynamically to the ...

Here, we report a stable and predictable aero-elastic motion in the flow-driven energy harvester, which is different from flapping and vortex-induced-vibration (VIV). A unified theoretical frame work that describes the flutter phenomenon observed in both "stiff" and "flexible" materials for flow driven energy harvester was presented in this work. We prove flutter in both types of materials is t...

In acoustic energy, harvesting energy is captured from external noise sources, controlled and stored for various applications. Despite the prevalence of acoustic energy a major challenge of energy harvesting is the low power density. Acoustic Energy Harvester consists of a resonator, an acoustic transducer and a storage device. When acoustic resonator is excited by an incident wave at its reson...