Parameter Optimization of Nonlinear Piezoelectric Energy Harvesting System for IoT Applications

The vibrational energy harvesting has been essentially applied to power up low-power electronics, microsystems, and wireless sensors especially in the areas of Internet of Things (IoT) devices. This paper investigates the prospect of incorporating nonlinearity in a unimorph piezoelectric cantilever beam with a tip magnet placed under a harmonic base excitation in IoT enabled environment. An empirical and theoretical analysis on the impact of various parameters such as spacing distance between magnets, presence of magnetic tip mass and positioning of vibrational source on the frequency response output was performed. It was observed that the largest spectrum of frequency can be produced when at the lowest resonant frequency of the cantilever. The positioning of vibrational source deeply impacts the hysteresis region and frequency range in realizing broadband energy harvesting. The inclusiveness of vibration source on both the cantilever beam as well as the external magnets impacts the energy harvester in terms of frequency range and the minimal distance for bistable condition