Hybrid Power Harvesting for Increased Power Conversion Efficiency

This work presents a cooperative power harvesting scheme, collecting power from two or more independent ambient energy sources into a single non-linear component. It is shown that the interaction of uncorrelated signals in a nonlinear device can greatly improve the conversion efficiency of the harvester. This letter proposes and studies a hybrid power harvester working with both microwave radiation and mechanical vibration excitations. Up to 6 dB gain on the harvested power is obtained for excitations in the range of maximum -40 dBm input power, when compared to a single excitation and standalone harvester working at the same input power level.