Energy-Harvesting Powered Variable Storage Topology for Battery-Free Wireless Sensors

Abstract

The energy autonomy of wireless sensors is one of the main roadblocks to their wide deployment. The purpose of this study is to propose simple adaptive storage architecture, which combined with energy harvesting, could replace a battery. The main concept is based on using several ultracapacitors (at least two) that are reconfigured in a series or in parallel according to its state of charge/discharge, either to speed up the startup of the powered system or to provide energy autonomy. The proposed structure is based on two ultra-capacitors, one of small capacitance value and one of big value. Powered by an energy-harvesting source, the devised control circuitry allows cold start up with empty ultra-capacitors, pre-regulated output voltage, and energy usage efficiency close to 94.7%.

Keywords

• energy harvesting
• autonomy
• variable energy storage
• ultra-capacitors
• wireless sensor