Vibration energy harvesting is receiving a considerable amount of interest as a means for powering wireless sensor nodes. This paper presents a small (component volume 0.1 cm3, practical volume 0.15 cm3) electromagnetic generator utilizing discrete components and optimized for a low ambient vibration level based upon real application data. The generator uses four magnets arranged on an etched cantilever with a wound coil located within the moving magnetic field. Magnet size and coil properties were optimized, with the final device producing 46 µW in a resistive load of 4 k! from just 0.59 m s! 2 acceleration levels at its resonant frequency of 52 Hz. A voltage of 428 mVrms was obtained from the generator with a 2300 turn coil which has proved sufficient for subsequent rectification and voltage step-up circuitry. The generator delivers 30% of the power supplied from the environment to useful electrical power in the load. This generator compares very favourably with other demonstrated examples in the literature, both in terms of normalized power density and efficiency. (Some figures in this article are in colour only in the electronic version)

This article proposes a new wide-range bidirectional dc–dc converter that has an improved voltage gain transfer ratio for use in electric vehicle (EV) applications. The converter preserves the common electrical ground between input and output terminals, and presents a low-voltage stress of switches, high utilization factor, and high efficiency. The proposed EV charger performance is evaluated for a bidirectional power flow in grid-connected vehicle-to-grid (V2G) and grid-to-vehicle (G2V) modes. The converter uses a dead-beat current controller in the dc–dc and dc–ac stages, which has a smooth, accurate, and fast response. Finally, experimental results for a 500 W, 40–200 V prototype are provided under a bidirectional power flow in a closed-loop system in the presence of the proposed dead-beat controllers. The obtained results substantiate the theoretical analysis and the applicability of this structure. The converter exhibits the capability for EV battery charging/discharging and demonstrates a peak efficiency of 97.2% and 96.8% in the step-down and step-up modes of operation, respectively.

Virtual synchronous generator (VSG) control for converters has been proposed as a method to provide virtual inertia from power electronics connected generation and storage. Most works to date have analyzed VSG control under the assumption that the VSG dynamics are much slower than that the converter. This work shows that when converter and line dynamics are taken into account the virtual inertia and damping settings are constrained by stability considerations. These conditions for stability are analyzed based on a simple transfer function approach. It is shown that for the VSG to be stable and validly approximated by a second order system, the ratio of damping to virtual inertia is a key parameter. This paper quantifies how these VSG parameters are constrained by stability. The transfer function analysis is validated using full switching model simulations of stable and unstable cases.

This paper presents the modeling and optimization of an electromagnetic-based generator for generating power from ambient vibrations. Basic equations describing such generators are presented and the conditions for maximum power generation are described. Two-centimeter scale prototype generators, which consist of magnets suspended on a beam vibrating relative to a coil, have been built and tested. The measured power and modeled results are compared. It is shown that the experimental results confirm the optimization theory