Some views on power management in energy harvesting systems

January 15, 2020

The concept of energy harvesting has been around for more than 10 years, but in real-world environments, systems powered by environmental energy have been cumbersome, complex and expensive. However, some markets have successfully adopted energy harvesting methods such as transportation infrastructure, wireless medical equipment, tire pressure testing and building automation markets. Especially in building automation systems, such as occupancy sensors, thermostats, and even light-controlled switches, the power or control wiring that was commonly used in previous installations is now no longer needed. Instead, they use local energy. Collection system.

One of the main applications of energy harvesting systems is wireless sensors in building automation systems. For the sake of explanation, let's consider the distribution of energy use in the United States. Buildings are the number one user of energy production each year, accounting for 38% of total energy consumption, followed by transportation and industry, each accounting for 28% of total energy consumption. In addition, buildings can be further divided into commercial and residential buildings, with 17% and 21% of the 38% energy consumption. The 21% energy consumption figures for residential buildings can be further divided, with heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) accounting for about three-quarters of the total energy consumption of civil buildings. It is currently estimated that from 2003 to 2030, energy use will double, and it is estimated that using building automation systems can save up to 30% of energy [Source: "World Energy, Technology and Climate policy outlook (WETO) ", co-authored by several research institutions in the European Union].

Similarly, a wireless network using energy harvesting methods can connect any number of sensors in a building to adjust the temperature of the area or turn off the area when there is no one in a building or room in a non-primary area. Lights, which reduce HVAC and electricity costs. In addition, the cost of energy harvesting electronics is often lower than the cost of laying power cords or the daily maintenance costs required to replace batteries, so there is clearly an economic benefit to using the collected energy to power the method.

However, if each node needs its own external power supply, many wireless sensor networks lose their advantage. Although power management technology is indeed evolving, it has enabled electronic circuits to operate longer for a given power supply, but this is limited, and the use of collected energy provides a complementary approach. Thus, energy harvesting is a method of powering wireless sensor nodes by converting local environmental energy into usable electrical energy. Environmental energy sources include light, temperature differences, vibrating beams, RF signals that have been sent, or any energy source that can generate electrical charge through a transducer. These energy sources are everywhere around us, using suitable transducers such as thermoelectric generators for temperature differences (TEG), piezoelectric components for vibration, photovoltaic cells for sunlight (or indoor lighting), etc. These energy sources are converted into electrical energy and can even use the electrical energy produced by moist gases. These so-called "free" energy sources can be used to power electronic components and systems from the main ground.

All wireless sensor nodes now operate at microwatt-level average power, so it is possible to power them with unconventional power supplies. This has led to the emergence of energy harvesting, which can be used to charge, replenish, or replace batteries in a system that is inconvenient, unrealistic, expensive, or dangerous to use. Powered by the collected energy, it is no longer necessary to wire or power the data. In addition, the energy generated by industrial processes, solar panels or internal combustion engines can also be collected for use, otherwise it is wasted.

Problems and characteristics of energy harvesting applications

A typical energy harvesting configuration or wireless sensor node (WSN) consists of 4 boxes (see Figure 1). They are: 1) environmental energy; 2) transducer components and power conversion circuits that power downstream electronics; 3) connecting the node to real-world detection and computing components (composed of microprocessors or microcontrollers) Processing measurement data and storing the data in memory); 4) A communication component consisting of short-range wireless units that enables wireless communication with neighboring nodes and the outside world.

Examples of environmental energy sources include: a thermoelectric generator (TEG) or a thermopile connected to a heat source such as a HVAC pipe; or a piezoelectric transducer connected to a mechanical vibration source such as a window glass. In the case of a heat source, a compact thermoelectric device (often called a transducer) converts small temperature differences into electrical energy. Piezoelectric devices can be used to convert mechanical energy into electrical energy in the presence of mechanical vibration or pressure.

Once the electrical energy is generated, it can be converted and adjusted to a suitable form by the energy harvesting circuit to power the downstream electronic components. Thus, a microprocessor can wake up a sensor to take readings or measurements, and the readings or measurements can be processed by an analog to digital converter for transmission through an ultra low power wireless transceiver.

Some views on power management in energy harvesting systems

Figure 1: Block diagram of the main components of a typical energy harvesting system or wireless sensor node

FREE ENERGY SOURCE: Free Energy

ENERGY HARVESTER/MANAGER: Energy Collector / Manager

SENSORS, A/D, uCONTROLLER: Sensors, A/D, Microcontrollers

WIRELESS TRANSMITTER/RECEIVER: Wireless Transmitter / Receiver

There are several factors that affect the power consumption characteristics of wireless sensor node energy harvesting systems. Table 1 summarizes these factors.

Table 1: Factors Affecting Power Consumption of Wireless Sensor Nodes

Factors affecting the power consumption of wireless sensor nodes

Of course, the energy provided by the energy harvesting source depends on when it is in an operational state. Therefore, the primary measure of comparing energy harvesting power sources is power density, not energy density. Energy harvesting typically encounters low, variable, and unpredictable available power, and thus a hybrid structure coupled to the energy harvester and an auxiliary electrical energy storage is typically employed. The collector becomes a system energy source due to its infinite energy supply and insufficient power. Auxiliary energy storage (a battery or a capacitor) produces higher power, but stores less energy, it supplies power when needed, and in other cases periodically receives charge from the collector. Therefore, when there is no environmental energy available to collect power, the auxiliary energy storage must be used to power the WSN. Of course, this will lead to a further increase in complexity from the perspective of the system designer, as they must now consider the question "How much energy should be stored in the auxiliary storage in order to compensate for the lack of an ambient energy source? "How much energy you need to store will depend on a number of factors, including:

1. The length of time that lacks an ambient energy source

2. The duty cycle of the WSN (ie the frequency that the data read and transfer operations must have)

3. Size and type of auxiliary storage (capacitors, supercapacitors or batteries)

4. Is it sufficient environmental energy to provide both a primary energy source and sufficient residual energy (for charging the auxiliary energy storage when it is not available for certain periods of time)?

State-of-the-art and off-the-shelf energy harvesting technologies such as vibration energy harvesting and indoor photovoltaic technology produce milliwatts of power under typical operating conditions. Although such low power seems to be very limited, the work of collecting components for several years can show that these technologies are generally similar to long-life primary batteries, both in terms of energy supply and cost per unit of energy provided. . In addition, systems that use energy harvesting typically recharge after the power is exhausted, which is not possible with a main battery powered system.

As already discussed, environmental energy sources include light, temperature differences, vibrating beams, transmitted RF signals, or any other energy source that can generate electrical charge through a transducer. Table 2 below shows how much energy can be generated from different sources of energy.

Some views on power management in energy harvesting systems

Table 2: Energy and how much energy they can produce

Successfully designing a completely self-contained wireless sensor system requires off-the-shelf power-saving microcontrollers and transducers that require minimal and low-energy energy. Fortunately, low-cost and low-power sensors and microcontrollers have been on the market for two or three years, but only recently, ultra-low-power transceivers have been put into commercial use. However, in this series of links, the energy collector has been behind. Existing energy harvester module implementations (shown in Figure 1) tend to use low-performance and complex discrete structures, typically consisting of 30 or more components. This type of design has low conversion efficiency and high quiescent current. Both of these deficiencies lead to impaired performance of the final system. Low conversion efficiency will increase the time required for the system to power up, which in turn extends the time interval from the acquisition of a sensor reading to the transmission of that data. The high quiescent current limits the minimum value that the energy harvesting source can reach because it must first supply the current required for its own operation, and the extra power can be supplied to the output. It is in the field of energy harvesters that Linear Technology's recently introduced LTC3109, LTC3588-1 and LTC3105 take performance and simplicity to a new level.

The new level of performance offered by these energy harvesting ICs is completely unachievable with discrete solutions. As a result, they are the “catalysts” that drive the growth of energy harvesting system manufacturers because they are able to collect very low environmental energy. This level of performance, coupled with the economical price of transducers, microcontrollers, sensors and transceivers, has increased market acceptance. This is one of the reasons why such systems have received a lot of attention in many applications around the world.

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