In this paper, we present a nonlinear electromagnetic energy harvesting device that has a broadly resonant response. The nonlinearity is generated by a particular arrangement of magnets in conjunction with an iron-cored stator. We show the resonant response of the system to both pure-tone excitation and narrow-band random excitation. In addition to the primary resonance, the superharmonic resonances of the harvester are also investigated and we show that the corresponding mechanical upconversion of the excitation frequency may be useful for energy harvesting. The harvester is modeled using a Duffing-type equation and the results are compared with the experimental data.

A new design approach is presented in this paper to show that under certain conditions, in a two-coil wireless power transfer system, the double-sided inductor-capacitor-capacitor (LCC) compensated wireless power transfer (LCC-WPT) system can be more energy efficient than the series-series (SS) compensated wireless power transfer (SS-WPT) system for the same load power, with special attention being paid to the effect that the parasitic coil and capacitor resistances have on the system efficiency. To make a fair comparison between the SS and LCC WPT systems, the direct current (DC) link voltage was adjusted to set equal load power for the two systems whilst using identical transmit and receive coils, coil-to-coil distance and load resistance. The system performance in terms of the system efficiency, the voltage stresses on the components, and the losses in the power devices were analysed for a practical system, comparing the LCC-WPT system and the SS-WPT system with respect to the load resistance. The effect of coil misalignment on the transferred power and efficiency for the two systems was compared. The theoretical proof and the conditions for meeting the objective are derived and practically verified in a two-coil WPT practical prototype, showing good agreement between analysis and experiments.

The provision of wireless and battery-free power is key to extending the applications of body-worn sensing electronics. This paper investigates the design of an IPT system for a body-worn scenario where the challenges include highly variable coupling, the requirement for the coil/s to be flexible, and close proximity to the body. Variable coupling results in a system that must operate with received powers ranging over orders of magnitude, whilst the use of flexible coils reduces the Q-factor and results in the potential for inductance variation. The human exposure considerations limit both the maximum field strengths that the wearer of a receiver coil might experience and the field strengths that a third party might be exposed to. In this paper, analytical models are used to identify key design variables and to guide the design synthesis of an IPT system for a wrist-worn medical sensor. Practical circuits to drive the transmit coil and to interface the receive coil with the load electronics are described. A prototype system is tested to validate the theoretical analysis, providing power greater than 2 mW to the sensor over a hemispherical region up to 250 mm in radius from the transmit coil.