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AN003
Building Blocks of an Energy Harvesting Solution
Abstract
AdaptivEnergy provides a high power density energy harvesting solution that, when
mated with today’s low power microelectronics, enables a self‐powered intelligent
sensor solution. To meet an application’s power requirements, a typical energy
harvesting solution contains four main building blocks: the Harvester, the Conversion
Electronics, the Energy Storage, and the Energy Delivery. AdaptivEnergy provides a full
solution containing all four building blocks for out‐of‐the‐box functionality.
Introduction
The energy harvesting performed by AdaptivEnergy’s Joule‐Thief™ products, as well as most other
commercially available energy harvesters, is opportunistic in that there is typically no steady source of
energy present in the end application. For example:
• A harvester will collect vibrational energy in an industrial environment when a motor, pump, or
transformer is running but relies on saved stored energy when the vibration source is off (such
as in power outages or periodic maintenance).
• A transportation‐based harvester will convert vibrational energy into electrical energy when a
truck or train is in transit, but this condition does not occur at fixed durations or intervals.
• A solar energy harvester’s opportunity for gathering energy when installed on a vehicle roof is
dependent on time of day, time of year, latitude, and relative cloudiness.
Since most energy sources are not continuously available, AdaptivEnergy’s expertise in combining
energy harvesting technologies provides an advantage in offering better performing, more reliable
solutions across diverse environments. To match the harvesting characteristics with the application
needs, a typical energy harvesting solution contains four main building blocks: the Harvester, the
Conversion Electronics, the Energy Storage, and the Energy Delivery (see Figure 1).
Four Building Blocks: A Discussion
Most energy harvesting development places equal importance on the design and selection of
the four main building blocks, which all work together in making a self‐sustaining autonomous
system possible:
• Energy Harvester
o Vibration (piezoelectric or electromechanical)
o Solar (single cell or multi cell)
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o RF (harvest passive RF or actively directed RF)
o Thermoelectric (i.e. Seebeck Effect devices using thermal differential)
• Conversion Electronics
o Efficiently and effectively collects the energy from the harvester. The raw harvested
signal is typically low voltage DC or low‐to‐high voltage AC.
o Converts the collected energy into a usable energy format (typically 1.8‐5.0 VDC for
charging storage or delivering voltage to an application)
• Energy Storage
o Accumulates and preserves the energy
o Low leakage such that the energy collected is not wasted
o Storage mated with conversion electronics to accept the incoming charge from the
harvester
• Energy Delivery
o Delivers the current and voltage levels required by the end application
o May include such things as a boost capacitor (to deliver high current levels when the
storage cannot) and a voltage regulator (to provide constant DC voltage)
Joule‐ThiefTM
Energy Harvester Conversion Electronics
Mechanical Energy
Energy Harvesting
Take raw electrical signal from harvester
Solar Energy and convert it to a usable DC voltage
Solution
Thermal Energy
RF Energyc.
Energy Storage Energy Delivery
Receives energy from conversion electronics Regulates the output voltage and
and stores it (supercapacitors, thin film current from the energy storage
batteries, Li‐Poly batteries, etc.)
Application
Typically a microcontroller + wireless
radio + sensor platform
Figure 1. Schematic shown for a typical energy harvesting power solution.
Energy Harvester
The Energy Harvester typically gets the most attention of the four building blocks above, although for
low power & long life applications the Energy Storage function also receives a deservedly high level of
attention. As listed above, there are a number of choices for energy harvesting technologies – and in
nearly all situations, each of these technologies functions in an opportunistic fashion where it collects
energy whenever the source provides it. Typical environments for different categories of energy
harvesters are shown below in Table 1.
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The mantra of an energy harvesting solution: If an energy source is available,
collect as much as you can – and if not, use your stored energy wisely! Sometimes
the environment contains readily available sources; in others, it is much less
predictable. The type of environment therefore needs to be considered when
designing a power budget for the end application.
Table 1. Categories of energy harvesters and their typical usage environments.
Transportation
Aerospace, Train, Truck, Automotive, etc.
Vibration
Industrial
Pumps, Motors, Transformers, Fans, Conveyors, etc.
Static Outdoor Installations
Bridge/Road Sensoring, Smart Grid field sensors, etc.
Solar
Transportation
Asset Tracking (Truck, Train), RTLS (Real‐time Locating Systems)
Industrial
Ambient RF and/or Actively Directed RF
RF
Smart Home
Environmental Sensoring
Remote Monitoring
Oil/Gas Pipelines, Transportation Sensors, Environmental Sensing
Thermoelectric
Industrial
Refineries, Processing Equipment, Manufacturing Equipment Sensors
Note that there are many overlapping usage environments for different categories of energy harvesters.
In many of these cases, use of one source (for example, vibration in an automotive wireless sensor
application) provides enough power for the end product. In other cases, one should take an omnivorous
approach by combining harvester technologies that can take advantage of an application’s environment
– for example, a wireless environmental sensor on a tractor trailer that harvests vibration energy when
in transit and solar energy during daylight hours.
Conversion Electronics
The energy harvesting technology (or technologies) selected dictates the type of conversion electronics
utilized. The predominant metric here is the efficiency of the conversion electronics = how much of the
energy provided by the harvester is properly converted into useful energy available for the application.
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The collection and conversion electronics of an energy harvesting solution are as important to the end
functionality of an application as the design of the energy harvester itself. AdaptivEnergy owns
intellectual property and has a core competency in circuit design and optimization for energy harvesting
solutions – both for high voltage variable signals such as from a Joule‐Thief™ vibration‐based harvester
and for low voltage signals such as from solar and thermoelectric harvesting sources. A comparison of
energy harvesting sources and their output characteristics is shown in Table 2.
Table 2. Comparison of energy harvesting technologies and their voltage output levels.
Power
Harvesting Technologies Voltage Density Duty Cycle
Direct Impact High High Low
Vibration ‐ Piezo High High Medium
Vibration ‐ Electromagnetic Low Medium Medium
Solar ‐ Single Cell Low High Diurnal
Thermopile/Thermoelectric Low High High
RF Medium/High Low High
Inductor Pick‐up (power line, electromagnetic) Low Medium High
When reading Table 2, Duty Cycle indicates the percentage of time the
energy source is providing the opportunity for harvesting when in a typical
application. For example, a tractor trailer in transit versus parked or a smart
floor experiencing a footfall versus having no applied energy.
The variability in voltage, power density, and duty cycle produces the need for sophisticated collection
and conversion circuitry to effectively collect harvested energy from either a single energy source or
multiple concurrent energy sources.
When comparing potential energy harvesting solutions for a given application, one must make sure to
focus on the effective energy/power metric, which reports the actual energy effectively delivered to the
application. Many times one will notice either an undesignated figure of merit or a reported optimum
energy – which describes raw energy produced from a harvester but prior to circuit inefficiencies. In
some instances, the difference between optimum and actual energy can be an order of magnitude or
more. The energy/power reported by AdaptivEnergy for its products is the effective energy/power.
Since there may be significant differences between actual power delivered to the application and the
optimum power produced by the harvester, care should be taken to use the actual power when
calculating an application’s power budget.
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There are experimentally proven gains to be made in the collection and conversion electronics for
energy harvesting products. The effectiveness of a circuit is measured by its efficiency in converting the
raw energy available from the harvesting source into stored energy in the storage medium. For example
(as of July 2009), an AdaptivEnergy “Active Collection” circuit collects, converts, and stores 3X more
energy than the existing “Passive Collection” standard circuit when using a Joule‐Thief™ vibration‐based
harvester. The circuit performs this by impedance matching the variable voltage and current available
from the harvester. In this specific comparison, the existing circuit design is ~15% efficient and the
“Active Collection” circuit is ~49% efficient. Further Active Circuit development is required for product
availability, but the promise of the technology is tangible.
Energy Storage
Considerations must also be made for the storage of energy within an energy harvesting solution, as
shown in Table 3 below. The end application’s environment as well as its power demands dictate the
type of storage(s) used within the solution. AdaptivEnergy works closely with storage technology
experts to most effectively pair the application’s needs with the performance of the energy harvester.
Table 3. Rechargeable and non‐rechargeable storage technologies for a harvesting solution.
o
Maximum Temperature ( C) Energy Power
Storage Technologies Voltage Current Low High Density Density
High Capacity Batteries
3.6V, 3.9V 10mA ‐40 125 Medium Low
(i.e., Saft, Tadiran)
Supercapacitors 2.3V, 2.8V,
10A ‐40 85 Medium High
(i.e., Cap‐XX) 4.5V, 5.5V
Lithium‐Ion,
200mA (2C) ‐20 60 Medium Medium
Lithium Polymer 4.2V
Thin Film
30mA (>20oC) ‐20 120 High Low
(i.e., Cymbet/IPS) 4.1V
Traditional Capacitors Any 10A ‐55 85 Low High
Mulit‐Storage Solution Any 10A ‐55 125 Any Any
Energy Density = amount of Joules stored per unit volume (J/cc)
Power Density = ability to deliver power (I*V) per unit volume (W/cc)
Of the above technologies, only the “High Capacity” are typically non‐rechargeable.
Performance attributes commonly considered when selecting an energy storage technology for an
energy harvesting application include the following:
• The temperature ranges through which the different technologies are rated for optimum
performance should be considered. For example, a lithium polymer battery is typically not a
good choice for applications exposed to high temperature environments. Another example is
thin film batteries, which have lower maximum current ratings at low operating temperatures.
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• A multi‐storage solution is most favorable in many environments, especially for applications
requiring high power density as well as high energy density.
• When selecting a rechargeable storage medium, a factor to consider is the ability of the
battery/capacitor to withstand a high number of charge/discharge cycles and maintain its
performance characteristics. Supercapacitors, traditional capacitors, and thin film batteries are
known for their ability to retain performance even after a high number of charge/discharge
cycles.
Energy Delivery
It is common for applications to require a combination of storage technologies to be able to (A) store a
large amount of energy and (B) provide the ability to deliver a high amount of power to the application
when required. For example, a thin film battery provided by Cymbet (the EnerChip) can be used to
deliver higher current bursts by adding a “boost capacitor” to the output stage. In this case, one
benefits by having the high rechargeable lifetime and low leakage of the thin film battery coupled with
providing high current bursts for applications such as 150mA peak current Wireless WiFi (802.11)
transmissions.
Summary
Selecting an energy harvesting solution involves much more than just selecting an energy harvester or
energy harvesting technology. The collection/conversion electronics, energy storage, and energy
delivery functions of the solution are all significant to the performance and longevity of the application.
The development of energy harvesters has coincided with the development of these other “building
blocks,” and application specific solutions can be effectively assembled today using available
technologies. AdaptivEnergy provides a full effective & efficient solution containing all four building
blocks for its customers’ applications, combining them in a standard package with well documented
performance characteristics for out‐of‐the‐box functionality.
For More Information:
Visit us on the Web at www.AdaptivEnergy.com
Technical inquiries: Harvest@AdaptivEnergy.com
Sales inquiries: Sales@AdaptivEnergy.com OR www.Mouser.com/AdaptivEnergy
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