WATERLOO TECHNICAL SOCIETY

April 10th, 2024

Vibration Energy Harvesting

Speaker: James McCullagh

James grew up in Cedar Falls and graduated from Price Lab/NU High School. Beginning coursework at the University of Northern Iowa, he graduated with a Bachelor of Physics from Carleton College. He then earned a Master of Electrical and Computer Engineering from Purdue University. 

After graduating from Purdue, James designed integrated circuits for hard drives and communication devices working for companies such as IBM and Hitachi. Following this he was awarded the Graduate Assistance in Areas of National Need (GAANN) National Fellowship to pursue a PhD in Electrical Engineering at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor where he graduated in 2014. 

This provided him the insights to invent novel vibrational energy circuits and win a Phase I Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) award from the National Science Foundation and start his own energy company. 

Description:  The automotive industry, for instance, uses semi-active and active suspension systems to recover part of the vibration in the suspension and convert it into electrical energy.

This presentation will focus on the discrete and integrated vibration interface circuits used to interface to vibration harvesters. This includes patented circuits developed in 180nm Complementary Metal-Oxide-Semiconductor (CMOS) to harvest from low voltage, low current vibration harvester outputs. 

Applications for vibration harvesting such as bridge-based harvesting, animal-based harvesting, and human-based harvesting will be explored as well as the challenges in the commercialization of vibration energy harvesting systems will be discussed.

Reservations: reservations@waterlootechnicalsociety.org, by 11am Monday, April 8th

Social period: 5:30 P.M, April 10th, 2024, Dinner: 6:00 P.M.

Program Chair: Steve Crouse

Guests are always welcome. We need your reservation to enable us to have a name tag for you as well as to send you a reminder in email. 

You are welcome to make a reservation for dinner or just come for the program. A program-only reservation is appreciated for a head count.

Where: Family Restaurant, 2627 Center Street, Cedar Falls

Dinner includes:

Meal Price:  $22.00 includes meeting room, tax and gratuity.

Membership Dues: As this is the first meeting of the year, the $20 membership dues will be collected (except for new members where the first year is forgiven).