A chaotic vibration energy harvester using magnetic material

This paper presents a new wideband electromagnetic vibration energy harvester (VEH) composed of a magnetic core embedded into the coil axis. The magnetic core generates a nonlinear magnetic force, which gives rise to the nonlinearity in the behavior of the VEH. Moreover, the magnetic core increases the flux linkage with the coil. These features improve the operational bandwidth and output power of the VEH. Numerical analysis and experimental measurements reveal that the operational bandwidth of the proposed VEH is over 30 Hz in which the output power is kept about 0.1 mW. Moreover, the proposed VEH operates by complicated oscillation due to nonlinear forces acting on the oscillator. Evaluation of the Lyapunov exponent for the measured oscillation suggests that the proposed VEH produces chaotic oscillation.