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

Authors

RIDVAN UMAZ

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.

DOI

10.3906/elk-1811-6

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