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Performance of the Open-Circuit Voltage MPPT Technique for Piezoelectric Vibration Harvesters | IEEE Conference Publication | IEEE Xplore

Performance of the Open-Circuit Voltage MPPT Technique for Piezoelectric Vibration Harvesters


Abstract:

The most widely used AC/DC architecture in low-power harvesting applications is made up of a passive diode bridge rectifier and a DC/DC converter. The latter usually impl...Show More

Abstract:

The most widely used AC/DC architecture in low-power harvesting applications is made up of a passive diode bridge rectifier and a DC/DC converter. The latter usually implements a maximum power point tracking technique (MPPT) in order to dynamically ensure the maximum power extraction from the harvester. In this paper, the performance of the Open-Circuit Voltage MPPT technique is investigated as a function of the piezoelectric harvester characteristics, of the input vibration characteristics and of the DC/DC converter control speed. Through a theoretical and numerical analysis, it is shown that a proper design of the Open-Circuit Voltage MPPT technique can lead to a significant increase of the power extraction, which in the considered examples reached 54%.
Date of Conference: 12-14 October 2020
Date Added to IEEE Xplore: 28 September 2020
Print ISBN:978-1-7281-3320-1
Print ISSN: 2158-1525
Conference Location: Seville, Spain

I. Introduction

Piezoelectric vibration energy harvesters are very attractive means for powering wireless sensors networks [1]-[3], because these harvesters exploit the mechanical vibrations available in the environment [4]-[7]. Since wireless sensor nodes need to be supplied by DC voltages, whereas piezoelectric harvesters are AC sources, an AC/DC converter is needed between the harvester and its DC load. Due to the simplicity of both the power stage and the control circuitry, the most widely used AC/DC architecture in low-power harvesting applications is composed by a passive diode bridge rectifier cascaded with a DC/DC converter, as shown in Fig. 1 [8]-[11]. The rectified voltage VDC is controlled by the downstream DC/DC converter in order to dynamically maximize the harvested power, carrying out the so-called Maximum Power Point Tracking (MPPT) [8].

References

References is not available for this document.