Numerical and experimental investigations of broadband random vibrational energy harvesting using monostable and bistable piezoelectric cantilevers are presented along with relative performance comparisons. Simulations and experiments reveal that a linear-monostable energy harvester can outperform its bistable counterpart for very low and relatively high random excitation levels. The bistable c...

This paper describes the design, fabrication and characterization of Polyvinylidene Fluoride (PVDF) based piezoelectric energy harvester that scavenges energy from the movement of human limbs. It investigates the effect of a piezolaminated curvilinear shell structure on the power density of a wearable energy harvester through Finite Element Method (FEM) and experimental results. Curvilinear She...

Energy harvesting from human motion addresses the growing need for battery-free health and wellness sensors in wearable applications. The major obstacles to harvesting energy in such applications are low and random frequencies due to the nature of human motion. This paper presents a generalized rotational harvester model in 3 dimensions to determine the upper bound of power output from real wor...

A numerical method called Multiple Attribute Decision Making (MADM) has been used for rational selection of a cotton harvester out of a finite number of cotton harvesters available the world over. In India, efforts are being made to design and develop a commercial cotton harvester to harvest selected cotton varieties sown by adopting common agronomic practices locally for cotton cultivation. Th...

This paper presents a low-profile, planar electromagnetic vibration energy harvester integrated with a Halbach array. Halbach array is a special arrangement of permanent magnets that doubles the magnetic field on one side of the array while cancelling the field to near zero on the other side. Using this arrangement can improve electromagnetic coupling in a limited space. The energy harvester ha...

This paper presents the electrical and thermal design of a thermoelectric energy harvester power system and its characterisation. The energy harvester is powered by a single Thermoelectric Generator (TEG) of 449 couples connected via a power conditioning circuit to an embedded processor. The aim of the work presented in this paper is to experimentally confirm the lowest ΔT measured across the T...

For light harvesters with a reaction center complex (LH1-RC complex) of three types, we propose an experiment to verify our analysis based upon antenna theories that automatically include the required structural information. Our analysis conforms to the current understanding of light-harvesting antennas in that we can explain known properties of these complexes. We provide an explanation for th...

Wearable medical and electronic devices demand a similarly wearable electrical power supply. Humanbased piezoelectric energy harvesters may be the solution, but the mismatch between the typical frequencies of human activities and the optimal operating frequencies of piezoelectric generators calls for the implementation of a frequency up-conversion technique. A rotary piezoelectric energy harves...

This paper presents a wireless sensor node (WSN) system where an electromagnetic (EM) energy harvester is utilized for charging its rechargeable batteries while the system is operational. The capability and the performance of an in-house low-frequency EM energy harvester for charging rechargeable NiMH batteries were experimentally verified in comparison to a regular battery charger. Furthermore...

In this work, we present an automatized, computationally efficient and stable compact modeling technique for a large-scale multiport model of MEMS based piezoelectric energy harvester. The method includes structure preserving model order reduction based on Krylov subspaces. We further demonstrate a cosimulation between the reduced harvester model and the power circuitry. Introduction MEMS (micr...