A design procedure for wideband micropower generators

We developed a design procedure for wideband electromagnetic micropower generators (WMPGs) based on piecewise-linear oscillators. We find that the dominant factors in the performance of this class of WMPGs are the stiffness ratio of the oscillator and the velocity of the moving structure at the point of impact with the stopper. We also find that designing these WMPGs requires additional steps beyond those required in the design of regular MPGs. The additional steps match the output power and bandwidth of the WMPG to the probability density function of environmental vibrations. While these steps add complexity to the design of WMPGs, they are shown to significantly increase harvested energy.