Circuits for energy harvesting sensor signal processing

Abstract

The recent explosion in capability of embedded and portable electronics has not been matched by battery technology. The slow growth of battery energy density has limited device lifetime and added weight and volume. Passive energy harvesting from solar radiation, thermal sources, or mechanical vibration has potentially wide application in wearable and embedded sensors to complement batteries. The amount of energy from harvesting is typically small and highly variable, requiring circuits and architectures which are low power and can scale their power consumption with user requirements and available energy. We describe several circuit techniques for achieving these goals in signal processing applications for wireless sensor network nodes such as using Distributed Arithmetic to implement energy scalable signal processing algorithms. In addition, we propose increasing vibration energy harvesting efficiency by eliminating AC/DC conversion electronics, and have investigated self-timed circuits, poweron-reset circuitry, and memory for energy harvesting AC power supplies. These techniques can also be applied to energy harvesting from other sources. A chip will be fabricated to test the proposed circuits.

Scaling self-timed systems powered by mechanical vibration energy harvesting

“…Power regulation has been eliminated completely, except for an integrated CMOS full-wave rectifier [Ghovanloo and 5:4 • J. Wenck et al Najafi 2004], which supplies a power-on reset circuit with a fast time constant, a critical-path ring oscillator, and a 16-tap programmable FIR filter implemented using a variable-length flip-flop shift register memory and two types of Look-up Tables (LUTs): one based on registers and the other based on a 3T DRAM. Preliminary results from this work have appeared in Siebert et al [2005], Amirtharajah et al [2006], and Wenck et al [2007]. This article expands upon those reports by providing an in-depth discussion of circuit design issues and extensive test chip measurements.…”

Energy harvesting technologies for low‐power electronics

“…Recent advances in very low power signal processing techniques and architectures for sensors have created the opportunity to use CMOS photodiodes, similar to those used in digital cameras, for solar energy harvesting . Moreover, the increase in interconnect capacitance as CMOS processes scale provides an opportunity to store the harvested energy without requiring battery materials to be integrated on‐chip.…”

Energy Harvesting from Mechanical Shocks Using a Sensitive Vibration Energy Harvester

“…Suitable electronics and power management circuits have to be used for the processing of harvested energy. Several strategies can be used and they were published in papers [14, 15]. Our team tests the solutions of our colleagues, which is described in paper [16].…”