Mechanical Amplifier for Translational Kinetic Energy Harvesters

Abstract

This paper reports the design, optimization, and test results of a mechanical amplifier coupled to an electromagnetic energy harvester to generate power from low- amplitude (±1 mm) and low-frequency (<5 Hz) vibrations in the presence of large static displacements. When coupled to a translational kinetic energy harvester, the amplifier boosts small vibration amplitudes by as much as 4x while accommodating translational displacements of more than 10x of vibration amplitudes. A complete electromagnetic energy harvester using this mechanical amplifier produces 16x improvement in output power (30 mW vs 1.9 mW without amplifier at 5 Hz), and a high power density of 170 μW/cm3.