Multimodal design of a novel MEMS structure for piezoelectric energy harvester

This paper presents a novel multimodal MEMS structure applied for piezoelectric energy harvester. The device consists of two meandering beams and four different length masses, which act as a spring-mass system. The meandering beams decrease operating frequency, adjust to lower ambient excitation. And the four different masses increase modes of the whole structure. More importantly, the Finite Element Analysis demonstrates beams vibrate up and down, also swing side to side. Such two motion directions extend frequency response. As a result, the proposed structure could effectively harvest vibrating energy in a wide bandwidth and be used for a self-sufficient energy supply system.