Bifurcation Scenarios in Electrostatic Vibration Energy Harvesters

In this paper, we present numerical bifurcation analysis of an electrostatic vibration energy harvester operating in constant-charge mode and using the in-plane gap closing transducer. We show how the system can be represented as a nonlinear oscillator and analysed using methods of nonlinear dynamics. We verify previous analytical theories and explain the behaviour of these energy harvesters, particularly in the regime between the first period doubling bifurcation and chaos.