Download Good Vibrations for Energy Harvesting

Good Vibrations for Energy Harvesting
By Tony Armstrong
Director of Product Marketing
Power Products
Linear Technology Corporation
[email protected]
Background
A wide range of low-power industrial sensors and controllers are turning to alternative
sources of energy as the primary or supplemental means of supplying power. Ideally, such
harvested energy will eliminate the need for wired power or batteries altogether.
Transducers that create electricity from readily available physical sources such as
temperature differentials (thermoelectric generators or thermopiles), mechanical vibration
or strain (piezoelectric or electromechanical devices) and light (photovoltaic devices) are
becoming viable sources of power for many applications. Numerous wireless sensors,
remote monitors, and other low-power applications are on track to become near “zero”
power devices using harvested energy only (commonly referred to as “nanoPower” by
some).
Although energy harvesting has been emerging since early 2000 (its embryonic
phase), recent technology developments have pushed it to the point of commercial
viability. In short, in 2010 we are at an inflection point and are poised for the
commencement of the “growth” phase. Building automation sensor applications utilizing
energy harvesting techniques have already been deployed in Europe, illustrating that the
growth stage may already be underway.
Existing Deployments Demonstrate Commercial Acceptance
Even though the concept of energy harvesting has been around for a number of
years, the implementation of a system in a real world environment has been cumbersome,
complex and costly. Nevertheless, examples of markets where an energy harvesting
approach has been used include transportation infrastructure, wireless medical devices,
tire pressure sensing, and the largest so far, building automation. In the case of building
automation, systems such as occupancy sensors, thermostats and light switches can
eliminate the power or control wiring normally required and use a mechanical or energy
harvesting system instead.
Similarly, a wireless network utilizing an energy harvesting technique can link any
number of sensors together in a building to reduce heating, ventilation & air conditioning
(HVAC) and lighting costs by turning off power to non-essential areas when the building
has no occupants. Furthermore, the cost of energy harvesting electronics is often lower
than running supply wires, so there is clearly an economic gain to be had by adopting a
harvested power technique.
A typical energy scavenging system or wireless sensor node (WSN), (as
represented by the four main circuit system blocks shown in Figure 1), usually consists of
a free energy source such as a piezoelectric transducer attached to a vibrating mechanical
source such as an HVAC duct or a window pane. These small piezoelectric devices can
convert small vibrations or strain differences into electrical energy. This electrical energy
can then be convertered by an energy harvesting circuit (the second block in Figure 1) and
modified into a usable form to power downstream circuits. These downstream electronics
will usually consist of some kind of sensor, analog-to-digital converter and an ultralow
power microcontroller (the third block in Figure 1). These components can take this
harvested energy, now in the form of an electric current, and wake up a sensor to take a
reading or a measurement then make this data available for transmission via an ultralow
power wireless transceiver – represented by the fourth block in the circuit chain shown in
Figure 1.
Figure 1. The four main blocks of a typical energy-scavenging system
Several factors affect the power consumption characteristics of an energy
harvesting system or WSN. These are outlined in Table 1.
Elements within the WSN
Power Supply (or battery)
Factors affecting power
consumption
Discharge rate
Battery dimensions
Supply voltages
Type of electrode material used
DC/DC Efficiency
Sensors
Physical to electrical signal conversion
Complexity of supporting components
Signal sampling
Signal conditioning
ADC
Sampling rate
Aliasing
Dither
Microprocessor
Core operating frequencies
Operating voltages
Power proportional to process &
computational load
Ambient temperature
Application code
Peripheral utilization
Radio
Modulation scheme
Data rate
Transmission range
Operational duty cycle
Table 1. Factors affecting power consumption of a wireless sensor node
Of course, the energy provided by the energy harvesting source depends on how
long the source is in operation. Therefore, the primary metric for comparison of scavenged
sources is power density, not energy density. Energy harvesting is generally subject to
low, variable and unpredictable levels of available power so a hybrid structure that
interfaces to the harvester and a secondary power reservoir is used. The harvester,
because of its unlimited energy supply and deficiency in power is the energy source of the
system. The secondary power reservoir, either a battery or a capacitor, yields higher
output power but stores less energy, supplying power when required but otherwise
regularly receiving charge from the harvester.
State-of-the-art and off-the-shelf energy harvesting technologies, for example in
vibration energy harvesting and indoor photovoltaics, yield power levels in the order of
milliwatts under typical operating conditions. While such power levels may appear
restrictive, the operation of harvesting elements over a number of years can mean that the
technologies are broadly comparable to long-life primary batteries, both in terms of energy
provision and the cost per energy unit provided. Furthermore, systems incorporating
energy harvesting will typically be capable of recharging after depletion, something that
systems powered by primary batteries cannot do.
As already discussed, ambient energy sources include light, heat differentials,
vibrating beams, transmitted RF signals, or just about any other source that can produce
an electrical charge through a transducer. Table 2 below illustrates the amount of energy
that can be produced from different energy sources.
ENERGY SOURCE
TYPICAL ENERGY LEVEL
PRODUCED
Small solar panels
100s of mW/cm2 (Direct
Sunlight)
Small solar panels
100s of µW/cm2 (Indirect
Sunlight)
Seebeck devices (which 10s of µW/cm2 (Body heat)
convert heat energy into
electrical energy)
Seebeck devices
10s of mW/cm2 (Furnace
continued
exhaust stack)
Piezoelectric devices
100s of µW/cm2
(which produce energy
by either compression
or deflection of the
device)
RF energy from an
100s of pW/cm2
antenna
TYPICAL
APPLICATION
Handheld electronic
devices
Remote wireless
sensors
Remote wireless
sensors
Remote wireless
actuators
Handheld electronic
devices or remote
wireless actuators
Remote wireless
sensors
Table 2. Energy sources and the amount of energy they can produce
Successfully designing a completely self-contained wireless sensor system requires
readily available power-saving microcontrollers and transducers that consume minimal
electrical energy from low energy environments. Each circuit system block in Figure 1, with
the possible exception of the energy source itself, has had its own unique set of
constraints that have impaired its economical viability until now. Low cost and low power
sensors and microcontrollers have been available for a couple of years or so; however, it is
only recently that ultralow power transceivers have become commercially available.
Nevertheless, the laggard in this chain has been the energy harvester.
Existing implementations of the energy harvester block typically consist of low
performing and complex discrete configurations, usually comprising of 30 components or
more. Such designs have low conversion efficiency and high quiescent currents. Both of
these deficiencies result in compromised performance in an end system. The low
conversion efficiency will increase the amount of time required to power up a system,
which in turn increases the time interval between taking a sensor reading and transmitting
this data. A high quiescent current limits how low the output of the energy-harvesting
source can be, since it must first overcome the current level needed for its own operation
before it can supply any excess power to the output.
New Piezoelectric Energy Harvester
What has been missing until now has been a highly integrated, high efficiency
DC/DC buck converter with low-loss full-wave bridge rectifier that can both harvest and
manage the piezoelectric energy from a vibration or strain source. However, Linear
Technology’s new LTC3588-1 piezoelectric energy harvesting power supply greatly
simplifies the task of harvesting surplus energy from such sources.
The LTC3588-1 is a complete energy harvesting solution optimized for low energy
sources, including piezoelectric transducers. Piezoelectric devices produce energy by
either compression or by deflection of the device. These piezoelectric elements can
produce 100s of uW/cm2 depending on their size and construction.
Figure 2. LTC3588 typical application schematic
It should be noted that the piezoelectric effect is reversible in that materials
exhibiting the direct piezoelectric effect (the production of an electric potential when stress
is applied) also exhibit the reverse piezoelectric effect (the production of stress and/or
strain i.e. deflection when a voltage is applied).
The LTC3588-1 operates from an input voltage range of 2.7V to 20V, making it ideal
for a wide array of piezoelectric transducers, as well other high output impedance energy
sources. Its high efficiency buck DC/DC converter delivers up to 100mA of continuous
output current or even higher pulsed loads. Its output can be programmed to one of four
(1.8V, 2.5V, 3.3V or 3.6V) fixed voltages to power a wireless transmitter or sensor.
Quiescent current is only 950nA with the output in regulation (at no load), maximizing
overall efficiency.
The LTC3588-1 is designed to interface directly with a piezoelectric or alternative
high impedance AC power source, rectify a voltage waveform and store harvested energy
in an external storage capacitor while dissipating any excess power via an internal shunt
regulator. An ultralow quiescent current (450nA) undervoltage lockout (ULVO) mode with a
1-1.4V hysteresis window enables charge to accumulate on the storage capacitor until the
buck converter can efficiently transfer a portion of the stored charge to the output.
Conclusion
With analog switch-mode power supply design expertise in short supply around the
globe, it has been difficult to design an effective energy harvesting system as illustrated in
Figure 1. However, with the introduction of the LTC3588-1 piezoelectric energy harvesting
power supply, with integrated low-loss full-wave bridge rectifier, that’s all about to change.
This revolutionary device can extract energy from almost any source of mechanical
vibration or strain. Furthermore, with its comprehensive feature set and ease of design, it
greatly simplifies the hard-to-do power conversion design aspects of an energy harvesting
chain. This is good news for the system designer because these “good vibrations” can be
used to power his energy harvesting system – instead of having to deal with the traditional
configuration headaches.