THESIS
2021
1 online resource (xiv, 107 pages) : illustrations (some color)
Abstract
The use of power management units for thermoelectric energy harvesting could lead to innovative enhancement of wearable electronic devices as they can harvest energy through the temperature differences across the surface of the human body and the ambient environment. The availability of autonomously generate energy would substantially reduce the cost of operating wearable electronic devices.
To effectively harvest energy with a thermoelectric generator (TEG), boosting the generated voltage with a switching converter is a favorable method because it can lead to optimized harvesting efficiency with various control techniques. However, the control block of the switching converter normally requires a sufficiently high supply voltage to startup and operate. Therefore, initial startup at a lo...[
Read more ]
The use of power management units for thermoelectric energy harvesting could lead to innovative enhancement of wearable electronic devices as they can harvest energy through the temperature differences across the surface of the human body and the ambient environment. The availability of autonomously generate energy would substantially reduce the cost of operating wearable electronic devices.
To effectively harvest energy with a thermoelectric generator (TEG), boosting the generated voltage with a switching converter is a favorable method because it can lead to optimized harvesting efficiency with various control techniques. However, the control block of the switching converter normally requires a sufficiently high supply voltage to startup and operate. Therefore, initial startup at a low input voltage is one of the key challenges in developing energy harvesting interfaces.
With the objective of alleviating the initial startup problem of switching converters in the application of thermoelectric energy harvesting, this thesis presents a dual-polarity input self-startup circuit implemented by UMC 0.13-μm CMOS process with cross-coupled complementary charge pumps and ultra-low voltage ring oscillators. The proposed self-startup circuit is integrated with an energy harvesting interface to serve in an advanced TEG with high internal resistance. The design targets to generate a high voltage of 800 mV to kick start an inductive hybrid converter with a dual-polarity input voltage of about 100 mV and –100 mV. Measurement results demonstrated that the self-startup of the energy harvesting interface can only be achieved at 196 mV for a positive input voltage. In-depth analysis of the problems encountered in the design and feasible solutions for improvement are discussed in the thesis.
Post a Comment