An Ultra Low Voltage Resonant Converter for Thermoelectric Energy Harvesting

Abstract

This paper presents a ultra low voltage resonant converter for thermoelectric energy harvesting.A key challenge in designing energy harvesting system is that thermoelectric generators output a very low voltage (-0.3V~0.3V). Therefore, a power converter is used to boost the output voltage of the energy transducer and transfer energy into an energy buffer for storage. The converter operates from input voltages ranging from-500mV to-60mV and 60mV to 500mV while supplying a 4.2 V DC output. The converter consumes 88μW of quiescent power, delivers up to 1.6 (1.8) mW of output power, and is 65(67)% efficient for a-100mV and 100mV input, respectively.