An Inductor-less Micro Solar Power Management System Design for Energy Harvesting Applications

A micro solar power management system is presented for energy harvesting applications. An inductor-less solution is proposed which facilitates the system on-chip integration. The authors target at the applications working in different lighting environments ranging from strong sunlight to dim lighting where the output voltage from the photovoltaic (PV) cells is low. A charge pump is used to step up the PV voltage to charge a battery or directly operate the circuit. The solar power system behavior is analyzed and the control strategy is derived in order to achieve maximum power transferred from the PV cells to battery or computation circuit. Simulations for the power management system were carried out to verify the proposed control strategy.