DESIGN,MODELING, AND PERFORMANCE MEASUREMENTS OF A BROADBAND VIBRATION ENERGY HARVESTER USING A MAGNETOELECTRIC TRANSDUCER

This article presents a new broadband vibration energy harvester using a magnetoelectric (ME) transducer. In order for vibration energy harvesters to be efficiently applicable over a range of vibration frequencies, many techniques have recently been investigated to broaden the frequency ranges of the harvesters using piezoelectric, electromagnetic, or electrostatic transductions, but few have been studied in the harvesters using ME transducers. In this article, a new harvester using a ME transducer is proposed, which takes advantage of multi-cantilever beams and nonlinear behavior of the magnetic force to expand the working bandwidth in ambient low frequency vibration. A theoretical model is developed to analyze the nonlinear vibration of the harvester, and the effects of the structure parameters on the electrical output and the bandwidth of the harvester are analyzed to achieve the optimal vibration energy harvesting performances. The experimental results on the performances show that the harvester has bandwidths of 5.2 Hz, 6.3 Hz, and 7.2 Hz, and the maximum output power values of 0.21 mW, 0.6 mW, and 1.03 mW at the accelerations of 0.2 g, 0.4 g, and 0.6 g (with g = 9.8 ms^?2), respectively.