Self-powered micro-watt level piezoelectric energy harvesting system with wide input voltage range

• Published in: Analog integrated circuits and signal processing Vol. 98; no. 3; pp. 441 - 451
• Main Authors: Nielsen-Lönn, Martin, Angelov, Pavel, Wikner, J. Jacob, Alvandpour, Atila
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: New York Springer US 15.03.2019; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: Circuits and Systems; CMOS; Diodes; Electrical Engineering; Energy conversion efficiency; Energy harvesting; Engineering; Low voltage; Piezoelectric transducers; Piezoelectricity; Rectifiers; Signal,Image and Speech Processing; Transducers; Vibration; Voltage converters (DC to DC); Voltage drop; Switching converters; Rectifier; Energy-harvesting; Low-power; Piezoelectric
• ISSN: 0925-1030; 1573-1979; 1573-1979
• DOI: 10.1007/s10470-018-1259-5

This paper presents a micro-watt level energy harvesting system for piezoelectric transducers with a wide input voltage range. Many such applications utilizing vibration energy harvesting have a widely varying input voltage and need an interface that can accommodate both low and high input voltages in order to harvest as much energy as possible. The proposed system consists of two rectifiers, both implemented as negative voltage converters followed by active-diodes, and three switched-capacitor DC–DC converters to either step-up or step-down and regulate to the target voltage. The system has been implemented in a 0.18 μm CMOS process and the chip measures 3 mm 2 . Measurements show a low voltage drop across the rectifiers and high peak power efficiency of the DC–DC converters (68.7–82.2%) with an input voltage range of 0.45–5.5 V for the complete system. Used standalone, the DC–DC converters support input voltages between 0.5 and 11 V while maintaining an output voltage of 1.8 V at an output power of 16.2 μW. The ratio of each converter is selectable to be either 1:2, 1:3, or 1:4.