Enhanced Vibrational Energy Harvesting Using Non-linear Stochastic Resonance

Stochastic resonance has seen wide application in the physical sciences as a tool to understand weak signal ampliflcation by noise. However, this apparently counterintuitive phenomenon does not appear to have been exploited as a tool to enhance vibrational energy harvesting. In this note we demonstrate that by adding periodic forcing to a vibrationally excited energy harvesting mechanism, the power available from the device is apparently enhanced over a mechanism without periodic forcing. In order to illustrate this novel efiect, a conceptually simple, but plausible model of such a device is proposed to explore the use of stochastic resonance to enhance vibrational energy harvesting.

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