Vibration energy harvesting via parametrically-induced bistability

The dynamic response to white Gaussian noise of a bistable non-linear vibration energy harvester based on the repulsive electrostatic interaction between a microcantilever and an electrode has been theoretically studied. The cantilever-electrode system can be brought from a linear regime characterized by a quadratic potential, when cantilever is far from the electrode, to a non-linear bistable regime characterized by a quartic potential, when both elements are close enough. This distance parameter, which is commonly used to tune bistability, is unusually used here also to inject the energy to the system in the form of displacement noise. Thus, the widening and shifting to the low-frequency region of the response spectrum as well as the enhancement of the rms out-of-plane vibration of the cantilever are both demonstrated through this parametrically-induced bistability