Three-dimensional magnetic energy harvester applied for locomotive devices

Abstract

An innovative tri-axes micro-power receiver is proposed and studied for wireless magnetic energy transmission. The tri-axes micro-power receiver mainly consists of two sets of 3D micro-solenoids and one set of planar micro-coils in which individually iron core is all embedded. The three sets of micro-coils/micro-solenoids are designed to be orthogonal to each other. Therefore, no matter which direction the input magnetic flux is present along, the supplied magnetic energy can be harvested and transformed into electric power by the proposed micro-power receiver in wireless sense. Not only dead zone of receiving power is greatly reduced, but also transformation efficiency of magnetic energy into electric power can be much enhanced. By Biot-Savart law and Faraday’s law, the mathematical description upon power transmission from transmitter to receiver is developed. By employing commercial software, Ansoft Maxwell, based on finite element method, the estimation error on power transmission by mathematical description is revealed. Besides, the preliminary simulation results by Ansoft Maxwell show that the proposed micro-power receiver can efficiently harvest the energy supplied by magnetic power source. The design parameters of tri-axes micro-receiver are hence examined and verified for follow-up fabrication. At last, for the MEMS process, the isotropic etching technique is employed to micro-machine the inverse-trapezoid fillister so that the copper wire can be successfully electroplated. The adhesion between micro-coils and fillister is hence much enhanced as well.