An Efficient Power Management System Using Dynamically Configured Multiple Triboelectric Nanogenerators and Dual-Parameter Maximum Power Point Tracking

摘要

Triboelectric nanogenerators (TENGs) have shown great potential as sustainable energy sources with the advantages of a lightweight, low cost, simple fabrication, and small size. Nevertheless, schemes for efficient power extraction from TENGs remains difficult, partly because of their short, high-voltage (HV) pulse output. The available power from a single TENG is not usually enough for practical applications. An efficient power management system for TENGs using a dynamically reconfigured combining method and dual-parameter maximum power point tracking (MPPT) is proposed. A series to parallel/parallel to series (SPPS) adaptive control method, which dynamically reconfigures the connection of multiple TENGs, efficiently combines the outputs. An MPPT method, which adjusts the dual parameters in a closed-loop, provides a wide range for matching the high output impedance (approximate to M ohm) of TENGs. The proposed technique is implemented using a 416 nW energy harvester interface integrated circuit (EHI-IC), realized using a 180 nm, 48 V Bipolar-CMOS-DMOS (BCD) process. Measured results show that the proposed approach achieves a 159-fold improvement in power extraction compared to the results without EHI-IC. Finally, a triboelectric energy harvesting ball (T-EHB), which combines 12 TENG pairs for multi-axis excitation, and several examples of device powering are presented using the T-EHB.