Non-contact magnetically coupled rectilinear-rotary oscillations to exploit low-frequency broadband energy harvesting with frequency up-conversion

Ambient vibrations have a rectilinear and broadband nature and are particularly rich in the low-frequency regions. This letter reports an electromagnetic energy harvester to transform low-frequency broadband rectilinear vibrations into electricity with frequency up-conversion. The harvester consists of a rectilinear oscillator and a rotary oscillator coupled through magnetic force induced by four arc permanent magnets centrosymmetrically distributed on each oscillator. The rotary oscillator also includes two repulsive magnets and six stationary coils with steel screws inside to obtain and maintain four equilibrium positions with shallowed potential wells. The magnetic interaction between the rectilinear oscillator and the rotary oscillator is formulated using a magnetic dipole model. The restoring torque induced by the steel screws on the rotor is experimentally measured. Magnetically coupled governing equations are derived and their numerical solutions are used to characterize the dynamic response of the harvester under chirp excitations. Experimental results demonstrate its excellent harvesting capability of scavenging low-frequency wideband vibrational energy under slow-frequency-drifted excitations, simple harmonic excitations, and mixed-frequency excitations. Under harmonic excitations, the rectilinear oscillator vibrates non-harmonically but approximately periodically, while the rotary counterpart oscillates in a more complex pattern varying with the excitation frequency, which leads to the frequency up-conversion (up to 10 times increase) and broadened bandwidth (25% increase from its resonant frequency). Experiments show an output voltage of 5 V (RMS)/40 V (Peak to Peak) and an output power of 55 mW (RMS)/950 mW (Peak) at an optimal load of 465 Omega under harmonic excitation of 4 Hz at 0.7 g. Published by AIP Publishing.