Powering electronics without depending on batteries is an open research field. Mechanical vibrations prove to be a reliable energy source, but low-frequency broadband vibrations cannot be harvested effectively using linear oscillators. This article discusses an alternative for harvesting such vibrations, with energy harvesters with two stable configurations. The challenges related to nonlinear dynamics are briefly discussed. Different existing designs of bistable energy harvesters are presented and classified, according to their feasibility for miniaturization. A general dynamic model for those designs is described. Finally, an extensive discussion on quantitative measures of evaluating the effectiveness of energy harvesters is accomplished, resulting in the proposition of a new dimensionless metric suited for a broadband analysis.

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PurposeIn the context of electrical impedance tomography (EIT), this paper aims to evaluate limitations of estimating conductivity or resistivity, as well as the improvements achieved with the use of an alternate description of the solution space, the logarithmic conductivity. Design/methodology/approachA quantitative analysis is performed, solving the inverse EIT problem by using the Gauss–Newton and non-linear conjugate gradient methods for a numerical phantom of 15 elements. A property of symmetry is studied for the direct EIT problem for a phantom of 385,601 elements. FindingsSolving the inverse EIT problem in logarithmic conductivity is more robust to the initial guess, as solutions are kept within physical bounds (conductivity positiveness). Also, convergence is faster and less dependent on the final values of the estimates. Research limitations/implicationsLogarithmic conductivity provides an advantageous description of the solution space for the EIT inverse problem. Similar estimation problems might be subject to analogous conclusions. Originality/valueThis study provides a novel analysis, quantitatively comparing the effect of different variables to solve the inverse EIT problem.

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