DC–DC buck converter solely powered by supercapacitors for efficiently powering the hand‐held devices

Abstract

In this study, a closed loop feed-forward direct current (DC)-DC converter has been designed which operates solely on two supercapacitor modules. This is an innovative new design where the challenge was to maintain the constant output voltage when the input voltage of the converter is decaying continuously as a function of time as long as the output load draws current. The second innovation is the selection of all the components that are required to design the regulated output DC-DC converter, even though the parameters like the supply voltages for the components have been falling continuously as a function of time since the supercapacitor modules are providing these supply voltages. The design is also robust enough to withstand certain fluctuations in the output current ranging between 200 and 950 mA and yet maintain a regulated output voltage. In this study, the authors have successfully demonstrated that one can design a DC-DC converter powered by supercapacitors to generate a constant voltage and desired output current while all the components required making that DC-DC converter remain operational although the input voltage of the supercapacitors is dropping constantly, due to the output drawing current. The operating frequency, i.e. the switching frequency ranges from 1.5 to 3.5 kHz. 2 Supercapacitor as efficient energy storage-a broad perspective A supercapacitor also known as an electric double-layer capacitor has much higher capacitance than a conventional capacitor. Supercapacitors are built to store ten to one hundred times more IET Power Electron.

Fabrication and characterization of supercapacitor comprising mango kernel derived electrode under different electrolyte system

“…The only concern with the ultra‐capacitor is its poor specific energy performance and hence its performance lies in between batteries and capacitors, generally represents on Ragone plot. With such performance characteristics the ultra‐capacitors can be seen in various fields which included energy harvesting, DC‐DC converters, space or military devices, windows locking systems, electrical vehicles, regenerative braking system, standalone low power electronics etc 6‐14 …”

“…With such performance characteristics the ultracapacitors can be seen in various fields which included energy harvesting, DC-DC converters, space or military devices, windows locking systems, electrical vehicles, regenerative braking system, standalone low power electronics etc. [6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14] The principle behind the storage of energy in ultracapacitors can be electrostatic: formation of double charge layer at the interface of electrode (e -trode )electrolyte (e -lyte ) or additionally done by the means of surface redox process (responsible for pseudo-capacitance). Despite of the development of different kinds of energy storage materials for ultra-capacitors such as carbon and its derivatives to make EDLCs or metal oxides/hydroxides/conducting polymers in case of pseudo-capacitor, the activated carbon (AC) still contains its importance for commercialization of ultra-capacitors.…”

Analysis and design of an asynchronous pulse‐width modulation technique for switch mode power supply

“…1. It consists of a modulator, a power stage (switches and output filter), and a compensation network [1,2]. Briefly speaking, the modulator is the key building block that converts its input signal V ERR into a two-level timevarying pulse-width modulated (PWM) signal.…”

“…Briefly speaking, the modulator is the key building block that converts its input signal V ERR into a two-level timevarying pulse-width modulated (PWM) signal. The width of the PWM signal is used to control the turn-on and turn-off times of the switches incorporated in the power stage unit and accordingly a portion of the total power is delivered to the load and vice versa [1][2][3][4][5][6]. Fig.…”