Self-sufficient electronic control for nonlinear, frequency tunable, piezoelectric vibration harvesters

Abstract

Research in vibration energy harvesting focuses increasingly on nonlinear harvesters. In comparison to linear harvesters they show an inherent larger bandwidth through hardening or softening effects and higher conversion efficiency. A further increase of the bandwidth and thus a higher energy yield can be achieved by controlled tuning of such a nonlinear system. In this paper a self-sufficient tuning control electronic, which is directly powered by the harvester, is presented.