Global stabilization of high-energy response of a nonlinear wideband electromagnetic energy harvester

This paper presents a resonance-type vibration energy harvester with a Duffing-type nonlinear oscillator which is designed to perform effectively in a wide frequency band. For the conventional linear vibration energy harvester, the maximum performance of the power generation and its bandwidth are in a relation of trade-off. Introducing a Duffing-type nonlinearity can expand the resonance frequency band and enable the harvester to generate larger electric power in a wider frequency range. However, since such nonlinear oscillator may have coexisting multiple steady-state solutions in the resonance band, it is difficult for the nonlinear harvester to maintain the high performance of the power generation constantly. The principle of self-excitation and entrainment has been utilized to give global stability to the high-energy orbit by destabilizing other unexpected low-energy orbits by introducing a switching circuit of the load resistance between positive and the negative values depending on the response amplitude of the oscillator. In this paper, an improved control law that switches the load resistance according to a frequency-dependent threshold is proposed to ensure the oscillator to respond in the high-energy orbit without ineffective power consumption. Numerical study shows that the steady-state responses of the harvester with the proposed control low are successfully kept on the high-energy orbit without repeating activation of the excitationmode.