An Integrated High-Performance Active Rectifier for Piezoelectric Vibration Energy Harvesting Systems

Author

Sun, Yang ; Hieu, Nguyen Huy ; Jeong, Chang-Jin ; Lee, Sang-Gug

Author_Institution

Dept. of Electr. Eng., Korea Adv. Inst. of Sci. & Technol. (KAIST), Daejeon, South Korea

Volume

27

Issue

2

fYear

2012

Firstpage

623

Lastpage

627

Abstract

In this letter, a highly efficient active full-bridge rectifier is proposed for piezoelectric (PE) vibration energy harvesting systems. By replacing the passive diodes with an operational amplifier-controlled active counterpart and adding a switch in parallel with the transducer, the proposed rectifier solves the dc-offset problem of the comparator-based active diode, minimizes the voltage drop along the conduction path, and extracts more power from the transducer, all of which lead to better power extraction and conversion capability. The proposed rectifier, implemented in 0.18-μm CMOS technology, shows 90% power conversion efficiency and 81 μW output power, with values corresponding to 1.5 times and 3.4 times the values for a conventional full-bridge rectifier.

Keywords

CMOS integrated circuits; bridge circuits; energy harvesting; operational amplifiers; piezoelectric transducers; rectifiers; vibrations; CMOS technology; active full-bridge rectifier; comparator-based active diode; conduction path; dc-offset problem; integrated high-performance active rectifier; operational amplifier; passive diodes; piezoelectric vibration energy harvesting systems; power 81 muW; power conversion efficiency; power extraction; size 0.18 mum; voltage drop; IP networks; Oscillators; Rectifiers; Switches; Transducers; Vibrations; Active rectifier; CMOS; full-bridge rectifier; operational amplifier; piezoelectric (PE); transducer; vibration energy harvesting;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Power Electronics, IEEE Transactions on

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

0885-8993

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/TPEL.2011.2162078

Filename

5954188