An underwater magnetically coupled bistable vibration energy harvester using wings

Piezoelectric flow energy harvesting can be a potential way to yield endless electrical energy for small mechanical systems and wireless sensors. We propose a novel magnetically coupled bistable vibration energy harvester using wings for the applications in the water environment. The water flow energy can be harvested through the induced vibration of wings. The flextensional transducer can be packaged conveniently by using non-contact magnetic coupling mechanism. The magnetic force is amplified by the flextensional structure and transferred to the piezoelectric layer, thereby achieving higher power density and better reliability. A prototype was fabricated and tested in a water flume, which attended a maximum power of about 400 μW and the average power of 55 μW at the water flow velocity of 4 m/s. No significant variation occurred to the performance of the harvester after five days of continuous operation in the water, which indicates that the magnetically coupled vibration energy harvesting method has high reliability in the underwater environment.