Design and Optimization of a Tunable Magnetoelectric and Electromagnetic Hybrid Vibration-Based Generator for Wireless Sensor Networks

Vibration energy harvesting, nowadays, has become more and more attractive to power intelligent sensors in wireless sensor networks (WSNs). In this paper, a tunable magnetoelectric (ME) and electromagnetic (EM) hybrid vibration-based generator (HVG) has been proposed. The electric output performances of the proposed ME/EM HVG have been investigated. Compared with the traditional single MEVG or EMVG, the proposed ME/EM HVG obtains a remarkably enhanced output performance. The electric output characteristics involving voltage, current, power, and resonance frequency of the HVG can be well tuned by controlling the number of turns N and the cantilever length L. When L = 5 cm and N = 750, the ME transducer provides a high voltage of 118 V and the coil provides large current of 124.1 mA, respectively. The optimum output power of the HVG achieves 40.84 mW for an acceleration of 0.75 g at a frequency of 25.7 Hz. Remarkably, the proposed ME/EM HVG has great potential for its application in WSNs.