Inherently Broadband-Resonant Mechanism for Vibration Energy Harvesting: A First Proof-of-Concept Experimental Validation

Abstract

This paper proposes a novel broadband oscillatory mechanism, with a first experimental proof-of-concept, to harvest broadband noise vibration energy while achieving resonant amplification. Conventional direct oscillators are limited to narrow operational frequency bands; while bi-stable oscillators, albeit being frequency independent, responds in a non-resonant nature. In fact, both linear and nonlinear oscillators have been theoretically and experimentally shown in the literature to perform equally poorly towards broadband noise excitations. The system proposed here internally couples a bi-stable system to either a direct oscillator or an auto-parametric oscillator, in order to inherently achieve resonant amplification by matching the snap through frequency to the subsidiary resonator. The resultant system has both numerically and experimentally demonstrated to accumulate over an order of magnitude higher in average response amplitude compared to either direct oscillators or bi-stable oscillators. The proposed concept validated and demonstrated here, establishes for the first time a resonant approach to harvest broadband noise excitations.