In-Plane Electromagnetic Generator Fabricated on Printed Circuit Board Technology

Small and efficient energy harvesters, as a renewable power supply, draw lots of attention in the last few years. This paper presents a planar rotary electromagnetic generator with copper coils fabricated by using printed circuit board (PCB) as inductance and Nd-Fe-B magnets as magnetic element. Coils are fabricated on PCB, which is presumably cost-effective and promising methods. 28-pole Nd-Fe-B magnets with outer diameter of 50 mm and thickness of 2 mm was sintered and magnetized, which can provide magnetic field of 1.44 Tesla. This harvester consists of planar multilayer with multi-pole coils and multi-pole permanent magnet, and the volume of this harvester is about 50x50x2.5 mm3. Finite element analysis is used to design energy harvesting system, and simulation model of the energy harvester is established. In order to verify the simulation, experiment data are compared with simulation result. The PCB energy harvester prototype can generate induced voltage 0.61 V and 13.29mW output power at rotary speed of 4,000 rpm.