Fundamental Limits to Nonlinear Energy Harvesting

Every little bit counts toward energy efficiency, including catching what would be lost to stray mechanical vibrations. Current research into harvesting of noisy vibrational energy aims to exploit nonlinear rather than linear system resonances, but identifying a priori the relevant modes for a given system is guesswork. Rather than focusing on specific nonlinearities, the authors study the fundamental limits, develop a framework for simple calculation of these limits, and offer a universal buy-low-sell-high strategy that guarantees the maximum rate of energy harvesting for a generic system. Their approach furthermore opens avenues for future work by connecting this field to control science, information theory, and statistical physics.