Now showing 1 - 2 of 2
  • Publication
    Wideband electrostatic Vibration Energy Harvester (e-VEH) having a low start-up voltage employing a high-voltage integrated interface
    This paper reports on an electrostatic Vibration Energy Harvester (e-VEH) system, for which the energy conversion process is initiated with a low bias voltage and is compatible with wideband stochastic external vibrations. The system employs the auto-synchronous conditioning circuit topology with the use of a novel dedicated integrated low-power highvoltage switch that is needed to connect the charge pump and flyback - two main parts of the used conditioning circuit. The proposed switch is designed and implemented in AMS035HV CMOS technology. Thanks to the proposed switch device, which is driven with a low-voltage ground-referenced logic, the e-VEH system may operate within a large voltage range, from a pre-charge low voltage up to several tens volts. With such a high-voltage e-VEH operation, it is possible to obtain a strong mechanical coupling and a high rate of vibration energy conversion. The used transducer/resonator device is fabricated with a batch-processed MEMS technology. When excited with stochastic vibrations having an acceleration level of 0.8 g rms distributed in the band 110-170 Hz, up to 0.75 μW of net electrical power has been harvested with our system. This work presents an important milestone in the challenge of designing a fully integrated smart conditioning interface for the capacitive e-VEHs.
    Scopus© Citations 17  527
  • Publication
    Tools for analytical and numerical analysis of electrostatic vibration energy harvesters: application to a continuous mode conditioning circuit
    This paper reports the application of different analytical tools to a basic continuous conditioning (CC) circuit for electrostatic vibration energy harvesters (e-VEHs). We address the fundamental issues of this conditioning circuit and give design advice that enhances the performance of e-VEHs employing this circuit. This circuit is widely used for harvesters with or without an electret layer. Despite its wide use, its fundamental problems have been weakly addressed even for simple configurations of e-VEHs since it is impossible to solve the corresponding equations in closed form. As a consequence, appropriate semi-analytical methods that provide an insight into the physics of the system are required.
    Scopus© Citations 6  303