Design, modeling and experimental verification of circular Halbach electromagnetic energy harvesting from bearing motion

Recently, bearing health condition monitoring has attracted considerable attention due to its great significance to prolong the lifespan and improve the system reliability of key industrial equipments. For the purpose of improving the reliability and effectiveness of energy harvesting in the monitoring node of industrial equipments, this paper proposes circular Halbach electromagnetic energy harvesters for extracting the electrical energy from the rotational motion of bearings to supply the monitoring units. The magnetic distribution model of the circular Halbach array is derived to investigate the magnetic field enhancement using different arrangement modes and structural parameters. The effect of gap, magnetic shape and distribution radius on the magnetic field is numerically discussed to obtain the proper configuration of circular Halbach array for performance enhancement. The experimental results of the fabricated prototype demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed model and optimization design for enhancing the energy harvesting performance. Moreover, voltage response and power output under different connection modes of multi-coil are experimentally discussed for increasing efficiency and reducing the cost and difficulty of interface circuits. Under the rotational speed from 600 rpm to 1000 rpm, the proposed harvester can generate the voltage of 2.79–4.59 V and the maximum average power of 50.8–131.1 mW.