Abstract
Self powering for small electronic devices such as wearable sensors and wireless sensor networks has been in high demand in recent years. Therefore, much research has been conducted that aimed to harvest energy from ambient sources to power such systems. Due to the presence ofmechanical vibration in almost all places, it is considered as the main interesting energy source. Dealing with vibration is also challenging due to its changing behavior relative to the vibration source (machines, human motions, trains, cars, etc.). This work presents an overview on the importance and the challenges of nonlinear vibration energy harvesting systems to scavenge and store energy from a real mechanical vibration source. A nonlinear electromagnetic vibration converter managed through a nonlinear randommechanical switching harvesting on an inductor (RMSHI) is presented. In particular, the proposed electromagnetic converter is based on the use of the magnetic spring principle (a moving magnet), which ensures the ability of the device to harvest energy for larger bandwidths from real ambient sources compared to linear vibration converters. The system has been studied, realized and characterized.