Abstract
In this paper, a broadband vibration energy harvester having a nonlinear oscillator using leaf springs and stoppers is proposed. In the conventional vibration energy harvester having a linear oscillator, there is a trade-off relationship between the magnitude of the resonance peak and the resonance band. Therefore, when the oscillator has a high resonance peak design to increase the power generation efficiency, there arises a problem that power generation efficiency is remarkably deteriorated due to a frequency change of the vibration source. It is well known that when using a nonlinear oscillator, the resonance band can be expanded. However, since the nonlinear oscillator has high and low-energy stable solutions in the resonance band, a mechanism to keep the oscillator responding in the high-energy solution is required to maintain the power generation performance. In the previous study, a response stabilization control to globally stabilize the high-energy solution was proposed. In this paper, a broadband nonlinear vibration energy harvester using leaf springs and stoppers is designed and manufactured. It is shown that the proposed vibration energy harvester with the response stabilization control can successfully operate in a bandwidth broader than 60% of the linear natural frequency.
