Multi-Directional Vibration Energy Harvesting Based on a Compliant Parallel Mechanism

A compliant parallel multi-directional piezoelectric vibration energy harvester (C-MVEH) is proposed based on a 3-RRR compliant parallel mechanism. The energy harvester structure consists of three identical L-shaped beams, whose bending deformation can be equivalent to the rotations of the three joints. In order to achieve greater bending deformation for composite beams, motion flexibility optimization of the mechanism theory is applied to structure the synthesis of the C-MVEH. Meanwhile, to reduce the natural frequencies corresponding to the working modes, the length of the elastic beam is optimized with the maximum natural frequency among the first three modes. In order to verify the excellent performance of the C-MVEH, an electromechanical model, finite element simulations, and experimental studies are carried out. Analysis of the studies reveals that the C-MVEH has three resonance peaks of output voltage within a bandwidth of 7–13 Hz and can output a total voltage of at least 20 V under a small excitation of 0.2 g. The energy harvester can achieve multiple peak output voltages under small excitations in different directions and a wide frequency range. With its outstanding stability, the proposed C-MVEH demonstrates considerable application value in the supplying of power to microenergy electronic devices, such as smart sensors and microactuators.