A smart energy harvester for axial-force measurements in vibrating environments

The possibility to scavenge energy from vibration and to measure at the same time additional information (i.e. physical characteristics of the incoming source of energy) is of great interest in the modern research including autonomous sensing elements, smart transducers, innovative method of measurements also in the context of 'industry 4.0'. In this paper we present a smart electromagnetic energy converter which is capable to perform two tasks simultaneously: Energy harvesting and sensing. The transducer is completely passive and able to work in vibrating environments, also in presence of very weak power kinetic sources (<10 μW). The vibration energy coming from the environment is used as input source of the electromagnetic transducer which is able to harvest the external kinetic energy, to perform measures of the applied axial force and it is also suitable to transmit data and the information of the measurand through an optical fiber without the adoption of supplementary active conditioning circuits. The system was designed, analytically modeled and an experimental campaign of the realized prototype was performed confirming the suitability of the proposed method.