Benchmarking of a Vibration Energy Harvester with Real-world Acceleration Measurements

This paper presents a comparison on resonance energy harvester power output in the real world versus three benchmark experiments containing elements measured in the real-world vibration. An one degree of freedom electromagnetic energy harvester is built and tested in various lab experiments using an electrodynamic shaker; a sinusoidal frequency sweep, power spectrum matching noise and real-world waveform replication. Comparing to the real-world power output, the frequency sweep indicated a 50% underestimation, the power spectrum matching noise experiment resulted in a 50% overestimation and the field wave replication remained within 7% error. Results indicate the essence of vibration energy harvester performance testing on real-world vibrations, to obtain an accurate performance indication.