VIBRATION ENERGY HARVESTING
Our research projects
Enabling Broadband Vibration Energy Harvesting in Bidirectional Frequency Sweeps
Vibration energy harvesting has emerged as an effective approach for energy generation. To enhance power generation efficiency, the utilization of nonlinearity has been widely adopted in the design of energy harvesters to expand the effective frequency bandwidth for energy harvesting. However, current nonlinear energy harvesters only optimize the bandwidth for up-sweep excitation condition. In this research project, we develop a novel vibration harvesting system that has broadband energy harvesting for both up-sweep and down-sweep excitation conditions. The optimized vibration energy harvesting efficiency is achieved by manipulating structural contact in energy harvesting system.
Optimization of Vibration Amplitude of Energy Harvesters
Optimization of vibration response for energy harvesters is critical for maximizing power generation efficiency. In this research project, a theoretical model of a piecewise-linear (PWL) nonlinear vibration harvester is proposed and numerically investigated. This new technique enables automatic frequency tunability in the energy harvester
by controlling the gap size in the PWL oscillator so that it is able to adapt to changes in excitations. To optimize the performance of the proposed system, a control method combining the response prediction, signal measurement and gap adjustment mechanism is proposed.
​​Reference:
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Tien, M.-H., D'Souza, K. Method for Controlling Vibration by Exploiting Piecewise-Linear Nonlinearity in Energy Harvesters. Proc. R. Soc. A. 2020. [link]