Toward self-powered nonlinear wideband vibration energy harvesting with high-energy response stabilization

Abstract

This paper describes an effort to develop a nonlinear wideband vibration energy harvester with self-powered stabilization control of its high-energy response. In a Duffing-type nonlinear wideband energy harvester, a well-recognized difficulty of coexisting attractors arises so that the emergence of the response in the high-energy branch is not guaranteed because it depends on the initial conditions to which steady-state solutions the state is attracted. The response stabilization control technique introduces a negative resistance which returns the harvested power to the nonlinear resonator to destabilize the undesirable low-energy solution and make the high-energy solution globally stable. In this paper, the power balance of the response stabilization control under intermittent disturbances is first experimentally studied, and a charging circuit to self-power the negative impedance converter (NIC) in the control circuit is then developed. It is concluded that the energy consumed by the NIC can be retrieved by the energy harvesting in 100 seconds even in the worst case.