Tunable vibration energy harvester

Abstract

Machinery condition monitoring is an established application for wireless sensor networks and energy harvesting technologies. However, vibration energy harvesters are generally applicable only to fixed-frequency vibration sources, as commercial vibration energy harvesters are highly-tuned to specific frequencies. Attempts have been made to deliver a tunable vibration energy harvester, but up to now none have been applicable to real applications. This demonstrator is a tunable vibration-powered condition monitoring system which is applicable to internal combustion engines that run at variable speeds. It has been deployed and tested on a ferry's diesel engine.