A subthreshold digital maximum power point tracker for micropower piezoelectric energy harvesting applications

Author

Sankman, Joseph ; Ma, Dongsheng

Author_Institution

Texas Analog Center of Excellence (TxACE), Univ. of Texas at Dallas, Richardson, TX, USA

fYear

2011

fDate

3-5 Oct. 2011

Firstpage

363

Lastpage

367

Abstract

Utilizing piezoelectric energy harvesting to power autonomous wireless sensors has garnered significant attention recently. However, because the generated power for small form-factor piezoelectric devices is on the order of 10 μW, the use of maximum power point tracking (MPPT) is imperative. Moreover, minimizing the power consumption of the maximum power point tracker is essential to increase the available power for the wireless sensor. To resolve this challenge, a digital MPPT controller is presented in this paper that is designed using subthreshold operation techniques. The MPPT controller is implemented and verified using a CMOS 0.35-μm process. The maximum power point tracker operates with a 1-V supply, consuming 3.71 μW while active. In addition, the proposed MPPT controller operates with 99.5% tracking efficiency.

Keywords

CMOS integrated circuits; electric sensing devices; energy harvesting; maximum power point trackers; piezoelectric devices; CMOS process; digital MPPT controller; efficiency 99.5 percent; micropower piezoelectric energy harvesting application; power 10 muW; power 3.71 muW; power autonomous wireless sensor; power consumption; size 0.35 mum; small form-factor piezoelectric device; subthreshold digital maximum power point tracker; subthreshold operation technique; voltage 1 V; Piezoelectric devices; Power demand; Rectifiers; Registers; Resonant frequency; Time frequency analysis; Voltage control; energy harvesting; maximum power point tracking; piezoelectric; subthreshold; time-based multiplier;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

VLSI and System-on-Chip (VLSI-SoC), 2011 IEEE/IFIP 19th International Conference on

Conference_Location

Hong Kong

Print_ISBN

978-1-4577-0171-9

Electronic_ISBN

978-1-4577-0169-6

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/VLSISoC.2011.6081610

Filename

6081610