Kulkarni, S,Koukharenko, E,Torah, R,Tudor, J,Beeby, S,O'Donnell, T,Roy, S

2008

July

Sensors and Actuators A-Physical

Design, fabrication and test of integrated micro-scale vibration-based electromagnetic generator

Validated

()

energy harvesting from vibrations micro-fabricated electromagnetic power generator MEMS fabrication techniques testing of power generator POWER GENERATOR SYSTEMS

145

336

342

This paper discusses the design, fabrication and testing of electromagnetic microgenerators. Three different designs of power generators are partially micro-fabricated and assembled. Prototype A having a wire-wound copper coil, Prototype B, an electrodeposited copper coil both on a deep reactive ion etched (DRIE) silicon beam and paddle. Prototype C uses moving NdFeB magnets in between two micro-fabricated coils. The integrated coil, paddle and beam were fabricated using standard micro-electro-mechanical systems (MEMS) processing techniques. For Prototype A, the maximum measured power output was 148 nW at 8.08 kHz resonant frequency and 3.9 m/s(2) acceleration. For Prototype B, the microgenerator gave a maximum load power of 23 nW for an acceleration of 9.8 m/s(2), at a resonant frequency of 9.83 kHz. This is a substantial improvement in power generated over other micro-fabricated silicon-based generators reported in literature. This generator has a volume of 0.1 cm(3) which is lowest of all the silicon-based micro-fabricated electromagnetic power generators reported. To verify the potential of integrated coils in electromagnetic generators, Prototype C was assembled. This generated a maximum load power of 586 nW across 110 Omega load at 60 Hz for an acceleration of 8.829 m/s(2). (C) 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

10.1016/j.sna.2007.09.014