Electromagnetic ferrofluid-based energy harvester

This Letter investigates the use of ferrofluids for vibratory energy harvesting. In particular, an electromagnetic micro-power generator which utilizes the sloshing of a ferrofluid column in a seismically-excited tank is proposed to transform mechanical motions directly into electricity. Unlike traditional electromagnetic generators that implement a solid magnet, ferrofluids can easily conform to different shapes and respond to very small acceleration levels offering an untapped opportunity to design scalable energy harvesters. The feasibility of the proposed concept is demonstrated and its efficacy is discussed through several experimental studies.     

Transduction of a bistable inductive generator driven by white and exponentially correlated Gaussian noise

In this theoretical study, the response of an inductive power generator with a bistable symmetric potential to stationary random environmental excitations is investigated. Both white and Ornstein-Uhlenbeck-type excitations are considered. In the white noise limit, the stationary Fokker-Plank-Kolmagorov equation is solved for the exact joint probability density function (PDF) of the response. The PDF is then used to obtain analytical expressions for the response statistics. It is shown that the expected value of the generator's output power is independent of the potential shape leading to the conclusion that under white noise excitations, bistabilities in the potential do not provide any enhancement over the traditional linear resonant generators which have a single-well potential. In the case of Ornstein-Uhlenbeck (exponentially correlated) noise, an approximate expression for the mean power of the generator which depends on the potential shape, the generator's design parameters and the noise bandwidth and intensity is obtained. It is shown that there exists an optimal potential shape which maximizes the output power. This optimal shape guarantees an optimal escapement frequency between the potential wells which remains constant even as the noise intensity is varied.     

Nonlinear Input-Shaping Controller for Quay-Side Container Cranes

Input-shaping is one of the most practical open-loop control strategies for gantry cranes, especially those having predefined paths and operating at constant cable lengths. However, when applied to quay-side container cranes, its performance is far from satisfactory. A major source of the poor performance can be linked to the significant difference between the gantry crane model and the quay-side container crane model. Gantry cranes are traditionally modeled as a simple pendulum. However, a quay-side container crane has a multi-cable hoisting mechanism.In this paper, a two-dimensional four-bar-mechanism model of a container crane is developed. For the purpose of controller design, the crane model is reduced to a double pendulum with two fixed-length links and a kinematic constraint. The method of multiple scales is used to develop a nonlinear approximation of the oscillation frequency of the simplified model. The resulting frequency approximation is used to determine the switching times for a bang-off-bang input-shaping controller. The performance of the controller is numerically simulated on the full model of the container crane, and is compared to the performance of similar controllers based on a nonlinear frequency approximation of a simple pendulum and a linear frequency approximation of a constraint double pendulum. Results demonstrate a superior performance of the controller based on the nonlinear frequency approximation of the constraint double pendulum.The effect of the oscillation frequency on the controller performance is investigated by varying the model's frequency around the design value. Simulations revealed that the performance of the controller suffers serious degradation due to small changes in the model frequency. To alleviate the shortcomings of the input-shaping controller, a delayed-position feedback controller is successfully applied at the end of each transfer maneuver to eliminate residual oscillations without affecting the commands of the input-shaping controller.     

Response of uni-modal duffing-type harvesters to random forced excitations

Linear energy harvesters have a narrow frequency bandwidth and hence operate efficiently only when the excitation frequency is very close to the fundamental frequency of the harvester. Consequently, small variations of the excitation frequency around the harvester's fundamental frequency drops its small energy output even further making the energy harvesting process inefficient. To extend the harvester's bandwidth, some recent solutions call for utilizing energy harvesters with stiffness-type nonlinearities. From a steady-state perspective, this hardening-type nonlinearity can extend the coupling between the excitation and the harvester to a wider range of frequencies. In this effort, we investigate the response of such harvesters, which can be modeled as a uni-modal duffing-type oscillator, to White Gaussian and Colored excitations. For White excitations, we solve the Fokker-Plank-Kolmogorov equation for the exact joint probability density function of the response. We show that the expected value of the output power is not even a function of the nonlinearity. As such, under White excitations, nonlinearities in the stiffness do not provide any enhancement over the typical linear harvesters. We also demonstrate that nonlinearities in the damping and inertia may be used to enhance the expected value of the output power. For Colored excitations, we use the Van Kampen expansion and long-time numerical integration to investigate the influence of the nonlinearity on the expected value of the output power. We demonstrate that, regardless of the bandwidth or the center frequency of the excitation, the expected value of the output power decreases with the nonlinearity. With such findings, we conclude that energy harvesters modeled as uni-modal duffing-type oscillators are not good candidates for harvesting energy under forced random excitations. Using a linear transformation, results can be extended to the base excitation case.     

Elastic Organic Crystals as Bioinspired Hair-Like Sensors

One of the typical haptic elements are natural hairy structures that animals and plants rely on for feedback. Although these hair sensors are an admirable inspiration, the development of active flow sensing components having low elastic moduli and high aspect ratios remains a challenge. Here, we report a new sensing approach based on a flexible, thin and optically transmissive organic crystal of high aspect ratio, which is stamped with fluorescent dye for tracking. When subjected to gas flow and exposed to laser, the crystal bends due to exerted pressure and acts as an optical flow (hair) sensor with low detection limit (≈1.578 m s⁻¹) and fast response time (≈2.70 s). The air-flow-induced crystal deformation and flow dynamics response are modelled by finite element analysis. Due to having a simple design and being lightweight and mechanically robust this prototypical crystal hair-like sensor opens prospects for a new class of sensing devices ranging from wearable electronics to aeronautics.     

Input-shaping control of nonlinear MEMS

We develop a new technique for preshaping input commands to control microelectromechanical systems (MEMS). In general, MEMS are excited using an electrostatic field which is a nonlinear function of the states and the input voltage. Due to the nonlinearity, the frequency of the device response to a step input depends on the input magnitude. Therefore, traditional shaping techniques which are based on linear theory fail to provide good performance over the whole input range. The technique we propose combines the equations describing the static response of the device, an energy balance argument, and an approximate nonlinear analytical solution of the device response to preshape the voltage commands. As an example, we consider set-point stabilization of an electrostatically actuated torsional micromirror. The shaped commands are applied to drive the micromirror to a desired tilt angle with zero residual vibrations. Simulations show that fast mirror switching operation with almost zero overshoot can be realized using this technique. The proposed methodology accounts for the energy of the significant higher modes and can be used to shape input commands applied to other nonlinear micro- and macro-systems.     

Potential well escape in a galloping twin-well oscillator

Nonlinear Dynamics - When a bi-stable oscillator undergoes a supercritical Hopf bifurcation due to a galloping instability, intra-well limit cycle oscillations of small amplitude are born. The...