Frequency Tuning of a Nonlinear Electromagnetic Energy Harvester

Abstract

This paper investigates a frequency-tunable nonlinear electromagnetic energy harvester. The electromagnetic harvester mainly consists of permanent magnets supported on the base to provide a magnetic field, and electrical coils suspended by four even-distributed elastic strings to be an oscillating object. When the base provides external excitation, the electrical coils oscillate in the magnetic field to produce electricity. The stretch length of the elastic strings can be tuned to change their stretch ratio by tuning adjustable screws, which can result in a shift of natural frequency of the harvester system. The transverse force of the elastic strings has nonlinear behavior, which broadens the system's frequency response to improve the performance of the energy harvester. Both simulation and experiment show that the above-discussed electromagnetic energy harvester has nonlinear behavior and frequency-tunable ability, which can be used to improve the effectiveness of energy harvesting.