Research Of Ultra-voltage Boost Technology For Thermoelectric Energy Harvesting

Wireless sensor networks(WSN) have shown extensive application prospects inmilitary and civilian areas. Owing to the large quantity and wide distribution of nodes,power supply for sensor nodes has become a major bottleneck which restricts theapplication and development of WSN.This problem could be solved effectively by supplying the energy collected fromenvironmental temperature difference for sensor nodes. The transformation from heatenergy to electric energy is utilized by using thermoelectric generation equipment whichcan sense the variation of atmospheric temperature in. In order to keep the WSN nodeworking, the ultra-low voltage of the output power of thermoelectric generationequipment should be boosted.In this paper,the heat transfer model of the equipment is established, and its outputcharacteristics have been tested and analyzed according to the experimental data,thereby providing the warrant for designing boost converters. After the analysis of threekinds of topological constructions of boost converters, a new kind of boost converterbased on resonance effect is proposed. The converter chops the input power source withcertain frequency to keep it resonate with the LC circuit to achieve a substantial increasein voltage. For the sake of obtaining high efficiency, the method of declining themagnetic loss has been researched primarily.After testing, this converter could boost voltage of any polarity as low as60mVand charge a Li-battery of4.1V for typical sensor. Its average efficiency is about67%.Thus the problem that the output power of device could not be used by sensor due tothe continuous change of polarity and low in voltage has been solved successfully bythis converter...