Arched beam based energy harvester using electrostatic transduction for general in-plane excitations

Abstract

A new design of a MEMS Energy Harvester (EH), based on an arched microbeam with electrostatic transduction, is proposed in this paper. The design consists of a single transducer composed of two masses designed to move in perpendicular directions and linked by the arched microbeam. Thanks to the proposed design the axial motion is converted and amplified into a perpendicular motion and vice versa. We derive a mathematical model by presenting the governing equations of the coupled electromechanical system. A static Finite Element analysis is also performed to validate the reliability of the proposed device and showed that a 10 times amplification can be achieved for the input motion. The solved analytical dynamic analysis demonstrates the practicability of the device for different in plane directions of the excitation. For optimal conditions it was shown that the initial polarization voltage can be doubled for a 20 s excitation.