RMSHI solutions for electromagnetic transducers from environmental vibration

The demand for harvesting energy from ambient has increased due to the advancement in the field of smart autonomous systems where a self-power source is needed. Kinetic vibration presents one of the main interesting and available source in the environment. However, to store energy from such source, different design requirements should be achieved considering the environmental vibration properties (hundreds of Hz and at low vibration levels, less than few m/s 2 ). It should be also noted that only hundreds of mV can be generated from vibration converters. In this work, an energy harvester system based on an electromagnetic converter and a passive energy management circuit based on the Random Mechanical Switching Harvester on Inductor (RMSHI) architecture are developed. Results show that also in presence of a generated voltage less than 100 mV, it is possible to store the energy inside a load capacitor. Further, the use of the proposed approach, based on mechanical and passive switch, enables to improve significantly the voltage outcome.