A two-stage power converter architecture with maximum power extraction for low-power energy sources

Authors

RIDVAN UMAZ

DOI

10.3906/elk-1811-6

Abstract

A two-stage power converter with maximum power extraction for energy harvesting is presented. The power converter consists of two stages; a maximum power extraction stage (i.e. first stage) and a regulation stage (i.e. second stage). The first stage consists of a number of charge pumps connected in parallel to extract power from the energy source while the second stage steps up low input voltage level to a usable level for a load. Proposed converter operates as low as 0.3 V and the output up-converts to 3.3 V. The proposed converter is aimed to extract maximum power from either low-power energy sources or high-power energy sources without increasing the complexity of the converter. Measured results indicate that the tracking efficiency is enhanced by 117 % - 123 % over a single charge pump in the first stage converter. Proposed power converter provides 66.7 % more power extracted from the energy source than the single charge pump one. The end-to-end efficiency is enhanced by 1.67$X$ as compared to the single charge pump implementation.

Keywords

Power converter, boost converter, charge pump, energy harvesting, maximum power

First Page

4744

Last Page

4755

Recommended Citation

UMAZ, RIDVAN (2019) "A two-stage power converter architecture with maximum power extraction for low-power energy sources," Turkish Journal of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences: Vol. 27: No. 6, Article 50. https://doi.org/10.3906/elk-1811-6
Available at: https://journals.tubitak.gov.tr/elektrik/vol27/iss6/50