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P3.6 - Efficient Boost Converter for Thermoelectric Energy Harvesting

Event
AMA Conferences 2017
2017-05-30 - 2017-06-01
Nürnberg, Germany
Band
Proceedings Sensor 2017
Chapter
P3 - Industrial Electronics
Author(s)
J. Gruber, S. Mathis - Zurich University of Applied Sciences (ZHAW), Winterthur (Switzerland)
Pages
642 - 645
DOI
10.5162/sensor2017/P3.6
ISBN
978-3-9816876-4-4
Price
free

Abstract

This paper presents a new boost converter for thermoelectric energy harvesting. The output voltage is regulated at 3.6 V for use with embedded systems. The booster reaches high efficiency at low input voltages of few 10 mV. A first prototype operates at about 15 mV input voltage with an efficiency of 45%. At 120 mV input voltage the efficiency increases to 74%. Using a 30x30mm sized low cost thermoelectric generator (TEG) in combination with the new developed booster, enough energy can be harvested to power an embedded wireless sensor.

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