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BATTERY-LESS NON-CONTACT TEMPERATURE

MEASUREMENT SYSTEM POWERED BY ENERGY


HARVESTING FROM INTENTIONAL HUMAN ACTION

EC-417
Seminar and Reports

INTRODUCTION
Low-power electronic circuits, sensors and micro electro mechanical system (MEMS)
devices, and their integration into compact and possibly single-chip systems have
allowed a wide diffusion of portable sensor modules.
To power such modules, energy harvesting techniques represent a promising
alternative to batteries. Harvesting environmental energy and converting it into
electrical energy can make the system battery-free and extend the system lifetime
without the need for maintenance as opposed to battery-powered systems.
Energy harvesting techniques from human motion could be useful for powering
portable sensor modules.
The conversion from human motion or intentional action to electrical energy can be
typically achieved by the piezoelectric or electromagnetic (EM) effects.
The input mechanical power can be variable in intensity and is typically nonstationary. This causes converters to produce transient energy bursts carried by AC
waveforms with time-varying amplitude and frequency.

To perform ACDC conversion, passive rectifier circuits can be used that consist of
combinations of diodes and capacitors. MOSFET-based rectifier circuit, also called
synchronous rectifier circuit, the switches are driven by comparators, which could be
powered by an external power supply source or by the same rectified voltage itself.
In the cases where the rectified DC voltage and the converter output current are not
high enough to satisfy the power demand of electronic devices acting as the load
continuously, it is necessary to connect the converter to a power management system
that is able to switch between energy storage and delivery phases.
Techniques to store energy into multiple elements have been proposed, such as the
combination of lithium batteries and supercapacitors , in order to extend the operation
of the load under critical time-variable excitation conditions. Multiple energy storage
elements may be useful to increase the rectifier circuit output voltage.
To increase the amount of harvested energy in the specific case of converters which
provide electrical power only over a finite time, an innovative technique called
sequential charging of storage capacitors (SCSC) has been proposed. The SCSC
technique suggests to be potentially best suited for converters operated by human
power
The converted energy is used to power an MEMS thermopile sensor which performs the
non-contact temperature measurement of a target object.
The resulting device is an autonomous non-contact temperature measurement system
entirely powered on demand by the intentionally applied user force, and it addresses
the new topic of battery-less portable measurement systems.

Power Management CircuitCustom non-contact temp. senser modul


Switchi
Energy
Passiv
ng
Storag
e
Vin(t Voltage Vreg(t Microcontroll
e
starter
)
)
Regulat
elemen
up
or
ts
circuit
Mechanic
al Energy

EM
Convert V(t)
er

Active
Rectifi
er
Circuit

Vs(t
)

SCSC
Netwo
rk

LCD
Displa
y

MEMS
thermopi
le sensor

Proposed battery-less non-contact temperature


measurement system

Target
object
temperatu
re

ENERGY CONVERTER
The EM converter used to supply the non-contact temperature measurement system is a
commercial hand-crank device
The conversion from mechanical to electrical energy is based on the magnetic flux variation
because of the rotational movement of a group of permanent magnets coupled with an
electrical coil
This is obtained in the converter by a system consisting of a lever, gears and a return spring
that transform the linear motion caused by the user compressive force F user exerted on the lever
into a rotational motion. The motion is transmitted to the group of permanent magnets,
inducing the AC voltage v t(t) across the coil.
When the user force has made the lever complete its travel, the magnets reach the maximum
angular velocity, which corresponds to the maximum peak amplitude of v t(t).
A release system then allows the magnets to keep their rotational motion by inertia, and they
progressively decelerate because of mechanical friction forces. If a load is connected to the EM
converter output coil then also the back electromotive force caused by the induced current
contributes to decelerate the magnets

Power management circuit

The AC voltage vt(t) generated by the EM converter from the user exerted force needs to
be rectified into a DC voltage to power the load circuitry. Active rectifier circuits are
effective solutions to rectify the AC voltage provided by an EM converter
The higher the voltage level on either C or C0, the larger is the voltage between the
source and the gate of Q1 and Q2 when the transistors are biased in the ohmic region.
This allows a further decrease of the drainsource resistance, with a consequent
reduction in power dissipated in the transistors.
Fundamental limitation is that when the voltage v C0(t) on the transfer capacitor is larger
than the input voltage vt(t) no further charging of the storage capacitor C occurs. This
may result ineffective, since additional energy potentially available from the EM
converter is not extracted because it cannot be stored.
To overcome this limitation, an innovative technique called SCSCs is used. The idea is to
replace the single storage capacitor C with multiple storage capacitors Cn with n = 1, 2,
, N, which are sequentially charged by a tailored switching network.

SCSC Network
The SCSC network is based on the comparator U3, the voltage reference generator V ref, an
N-counter with N decoded outputs, N single-pole double-throw (SPDT) analog switches
SWn, N Schottky diodes Dn and N storage capacitors Cn with the same capacitance value
C.
The switching process is repeated until the input voltage v t(t) is no longer able to charge
the nth storage capacitor up to Vref, which voltage level vCn(t) remains almost constant at
values vCnmax, neglecting the effect of the leakage currents.
Estored ( n 1)1 / 2C.(Vref ) 2 1 / 2C.(vCn max) 2 1 / 2.C 0.(vCn max/ 2) 2
The energy stored in all storage capacitors is given by
The capacitors that are not being charged through the rectifier circuit are accessible
through the NC pin of their respective SPDT analog switch, and connected through the
diodes D1DN to the switching voltage regulator
The operating input voltage vIN(t) of the voltage regulator is between VINmin and VINmax, thus
Vref must be chosen within this range. To power the load with the regulated voltage v REG(t),
the voltage regulator draws the energy from each charged capacitor, discharging them
from Vref down to VINmin.
The higher is the difference between Vref and VINmin, the larger is the energy transferred
from the storage capacitors to the load.

Comparison between voltage doubler active rectifier circuits with and


without the proposed SCSC Network

As a reset action, the terminal count output of the counter triggers the
microcontroller within the sensor module to power a low-ohmic-value resistor
to ensure that all the capacitors are discharged before a new charging cycle
begins
To power the active rectifier circuit and the SCSC network, a passive start-up
circuit has been used to generate a dual supply voltages v + (t) and v (t). It
consists of a dual 4-stage voltage multiplier circuit. DP1 DP8 are Schottky
diodes and CP1CP8 are capacitors with the same capacitance value CP.
The start-up circuit rectifies the AC voltage vt(t) delivered by the EM converter
to promptly provide the voltages v + (t) and v (t).

Non-contact temperature sensor module

The non-contact temperature sensor module is composed of an MEMS


thermopile temperature sensor with digital output, a microcontroller and an
LCD display.
The thermopile sensor measures the temperature of a target object placed in
the field of view. The microcontroller manages the sensor operation sending
commands and receiving the temperature data through the I 2C bus.
The temperature readings are visualised on a 7-segment reflective LCD
display directly driven by the microcontroller pins.

Conclusion
The temperature measurement system is entirely battery-less and consists of
an EM energy converter, an active power management circuit and a custom
non-contact temperature sensor module.
The AC voltage delivered by the EM converter is rectified into a DC voltage by
the voltage doubler active rectifier circuit, in which MOSFET transistors act as
rectifying diodes minimizing the power dissipation.
The active rectifier circuit is connected to an SCSC network able to
sequentially charge a series of storage capacitors. When a storage capacitor is
charged at a certain threshold voltage, it is disconnected from the rectifier
circuit while a subsequent capacitor is connected to be charged.
Each charged capacitor of the SCSC network effectively contributes to power
the switching voltage regulator that provides a DC voltage.

The non-contact temperature sensor module is composed of an MEMS


thermopile sensor, a microcontroller and an LCD display.
The power management circuit was realised on a prototype PCB with
discrete components. The circuit has typical current supply levels
between 7 and 12 A, and requires a minimum supply voltage level of
about 2.5 V. It is powered by the passive start-up circuit included.
The experimental results on the voltage doubler rectifier circuits with
and without the SCSC network show that by using the active rectifier
circuit with the SCSC network, the energy stored in the capacitors is
increased of up to 43% with respect to traditional rectifiers.
With an applied force of about 29.4N, the sensor module performs a
temperature measurement and displays the reading for about 33s.

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