Chaos control applied to piezoelectric vibration-based energy harvesting systems

Chaotic behavior presents intrinsic richness due to the existence of an infinity number of unstable periodic orbits (UPOs). The possibility of stabilizing these periodic patterns with a small amount of energy makes this kind of response interesting to various dynamical systems. Energy harvesting has as a goal the use of available mechanical energy by promoting a conversion into electrical energy. The combination of these two approaches may establish autonomous systems where available environmental mechanical energy can be employed for control purposes. Two different goals can be defined as priority, allowing a change between them: vibration reduction and energy harvesting enhancement. This work deals with the use of harvested energy to perform chaos control. Both control actuation and energy harvesting are induced employing piezoelectric materials, in a simultaneous way. A bistable piezomagnetoelastic structure subjected to harmonic excitations is investigated as a case study. Numerical simulations show situations where it is possible to perform chaos control using only the energy generated by the harvesting system.