Approaches for a fair comparison and benchmarking of electromagnetic vibration energy harvesters

Abstract

The performance of more than 60 different electromagnetic energy harvesters described in more than 100 publications is benchmarked. The benchmarking is based on earlier published parameters from literature as well as on two novel parameters introduced in this paper. The former allow to compare different harvester conversion principles as well as harvesters of different electrodynamic design principles. The latter consider the impact of ambient and boundary conditions for the most important sub-group, namely the resonant electrodynamic harvesters. The special consideration of how the mechanical damping and the energy conversion effectiveness depend on these conditions enables a fairer benchmarking of this common harvester type. High performing prototypes are identified, and the key parameters are provided for explanation. Finally, beneficial design approaches and the main challenges to maximize the output power are pointed out. © 2013 by the authors; licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.