Tapered nonlinear vibration energy harvester for powering Internet of Things

Paul, Kankana; Amann, Andreas; Roy, Saibal

Tapered nonlinear vibration energy harvester for powering Internet of Things

dc.contributor.author	Paul, Kankana
dc.contributor.author	Amann, Andreas
dc.contributor.author	Roy, Saibal
dc.contributor.funder	Science Foundation Ireland	en
dc.contributor.funder	European Regional Development Fund	en
dc.contributor.funder	Horizon 2020	en
dc.date.accessioned	2021-01-04T10:53:58Z
dc.date.available	2021-01-04T10:53:58Z
dc.date.issued	2020-11-30
dc.date.updated	2021-01-04T10:45:42Z
dc.description.abstract	The lack of a sustainable power source to substitute batteries for long-term applications limits the widespread deployment of wireless sensor nodes in this era of the Internet of Things. Conventional linear Vibration Energy Harvesters are inefficient in converting ambient mechanical energy into usable electrical energy owing to their narrow frequency bandwidth when harnessing mechanical energy that is spread over a wide range of frequencies. In this work, we design, develop and demonstrate high power density nonlinear wideband energy harvesters using novel tapered spring architectures in an autonomous wireless sensor node system. These spring structures exhibit a nonlinear restoring force arising from the atypical stress distribution that can be additionally tuned by changing the taper-ratio in the structure. We investigate different tapering designs in order to achieve optimal spring hardening nonlinearities. This nonlinearity aids in widening the operable bandwidth, making the harvesters suitable for scavenging energy from real-world broadband vibrations. We obtain power densities of the order of 2660 ÂµW/cm3g2 in the nonlinear energy harvester, outpacing most contemporary energy scavengers. We present a modified Perturb and Observe algorithm that allows tracing of the maximum power point in the context of non-stationary vibration conditions. We use the fabricated nonlinear device to power a wireless sensor node that reports on vital physical parameters (humidity, temperature), thereby enabling a resilient remote data acquisition system. This demonstrates the potential of our design to provide a sustainable energy source for platforms within the Internet of Things.	en
dc.description.status	Peer reviewed	en
dc.description.version	Accepted Version	en
dc.format.mimetype	application/pdf	en
dc.identifier.articleid	116267	en
dc.identifier.citation	Paul, K., Amann, A. and Roy, S. (2020) 'Tapered nonlinear vibration energy harvester for powering Internet of Things', Applied Energy. doi: 10.1016/j.apenergy.2020.116267	en
dc.identifier.doi	10.1016/j.apenergy.2020.116267	en
dc.identifier.endpage	15	en
dc.identifier.issn	0306-2619
dc.identifier.journaltitle	Applied Energy	en
dc.identifier.startpage	1	en
dc.identifier.uri	https://hdl.handle.net/10468/10851
dc.language.iso	en	en
dc.publisher	Elsevier Ltd.	en
dc.relation.project	info:eu-repo/grantAgreement/SFI/SFI Research Centres/13/RC/2077/IE/CONNECT: The Centre for Future Networks & Communications/	en
dc.relation.project	info:eu-repo/grantAgreement/EC/H2020::RIA/730957/EU/European Infrastructure Powering the Internet of Things/EnABLES	en
dc.rights	© 2020, Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. This manuscript version is made available under the CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 license.	en
dc.rights.uri	https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/	en
dc.subject	Broadband	en
dc.subject	Electromagnetic transduction	en
dc.subject	Maximum power point	en
dc.subject	Power density	en
dc.subject	Self-powered WSN	en
dc.subject	Tapered vibration energy harvester	en
dc.title	Tapered nonlinear vibration energy harvester for powering Internet of Things	en
dc.type	Article (peer-reviewed)	en