Design and manufacture of perpendicular bi-stable cantilever for vibrational energy harvesting on the basis of stochastic resonance

This paper describes extremely simple configuration of novel vibrational energy harvester, which can harness low frequency (less than 5 Hz, such as various environmental vibrations) over a broad frequency band for the first time. A design that utilizes a phenomenon called stochastic resonance can give significantly enhanced vibration mode for increasing efficiency, and simple bi-stable cantilever with tip mass installed a basement vertically fulfils the requirements for stochastic resonance. We fabricated bi-stable cantilever with tip mass and validated whether the cantilever could be used as an effective low frequency vibration energy harvester. In the experiment, when a 1 Hz periodic force and environmental noise vibration were applied, stochastic resonance occurred. The amplitude of the energy harvester increased over tenfold (over 30 mm).