The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Dec. 20, 2011
Filed:
Mar. 21, 2008
Robert G. Andosca, Macedon, NY (US);
Junru Wu, S. Burlington, VT (US);
Robert G. Andosca, Macedon, NY (US);
Junru Wu, S. Burlington, VT (US);
The University of Vermont and State Agricultural College, Burlington, VT (US);
Abstract
Vibrational energy harvesting (VEH) structures that include resonant beams each having a fundamental resonance frequency and a parametric mode frequency and including at least one piezoelectric layer for generating electrical charge in response to each of fundamental-resonance excitation and parametric-mode excitation of that beam. Circuitry is provided for harvesting the electrical charge from the resonant beam. In some embodiments, the parametric mode frequency of the beam is tuned to be close to its fundamental resonance frequency so as to increase the effective bandwidth of a VEH structure. The effective bandwidth of a VEH structure can be further increased by tuning ones of multiple parametric-mode-enabled resonant beams to slightly different fundamental resonance frequencies and parametric mode frequencies.