[2020; already taken] Energy Harvesting and Sensing from a Single Transducer

The transducer (harvester) used in an energy harvesting system can serve as a sensor element at the same time as it is an energy source. For example, a TEG harvester could be used as a temperature difference sensor, a PV cell could be used as a brightness sensor, and a piezoelectric harvester could be used as a vibration sensor. All these quantities are related to the available power presented by the harvester and could be correlated to the Maximum Power Point Tracking (MPPT) circuit output.

The MPPT circuit is fundamental for extracting the maximum available power from the harvester, but it is not a sensor front end. The coarseness of the MPPT output is selected to be coarse enough so that differences in power can be observed and fine enough so that efficiency is not heavily affected. Furthermore, the MPPT does not need to measure the absolute power value, only whether the difference between the two states’ power is positive or negative.

Assignment

This project’s goal is to study whether an MPPT circuit can be applied as a part of a sensor front-end. If not, how a sensor front end can be employed in parallel to a DC-DC converter, which changes the output voltage and current of the transducer and introduces noise.

Requirements

Student EE-ME with a genuine interest in energy harvesting and power management. Recommended completed courses are: Structured Electronic Design (EE4109), Analog Integrated Circuit Design (ET4252) and Power conversion techniques in CMOS technology (ET4382).

Contact

prof.dr.ir. Wouter Serdijn

Bioelectronics Group

Department of Microelectronics

Last modified: 2021-05-04