Fault resilience in network of energy harvesters

Abstract

Energy harvesters (EH) that scavenge energy from ambient environment are gaining popularity and are used for powering low demand devices on account of their low power outputs. Enhancement of the power is achieved through an array or network of identical EH. The focus of this study is on investigating how the network topology affects the harvesting efficiency per EH, using complex network theory. The studies are presented with respect to vibration induced EH, specifically, the commonly used network of coupled pendulums oscillating in a magnetic field, with the pendulum supports being subjected to vibrations. Questions on the EH efficiency are investigated with respect to the number of EH in the network, its topology and the effects of faults which lead to loss of regularity. Additionally, the effects of parametric random variabilities in the individual EH are investigated with respect to the harvesting efficiency. This study shows that EH efficiency is best for regular networks, can be enhanced by increasing connectivity but up to a limit and is resilient against few local faults. The performance drops with larger number of faults or due to parametric uncertainties. The findings of this study are expected to be of use in design and maintenance of EH networks.