Poly-stable energy harvesting based on synergetic multistable vibration

Distributed energy sources, for example the ambient broadband vibrations, are of great importance for the development of the Internet of Things. However, for multistable vibrational energy harvesters, increasing the number of stable equilibrium states to broaden working frequency bands is very difficult. Here we present a poly-stable vibrational energy harvesting approach capable of achieving an exponentially growing maximum number of stable equilibrium states. Unlike the traditional multistable harvesters relying on an external static magnetic field, the nonlinear dynamical behaviours achieved by the proposed approach are synergetic poly-stable motions without the need of external magnets. Comparison experiments in contrast with a linear harvester demonstrate the working bandwidth widened by a factor of 41.0, the power density increased to 760% and the electricity generation raised to 178%. This demonstration of new multistable energy harvester expands the approach to achieving multistable motion and provides a new design philosophy for nonlinear vibrational energy harvesters.