Thermal energy harvesting for power amplifiers

Author

Niotaki, Kyriaki ; Georgiadis, Anthimos ; Collado, Ana

Author_Institution

Centre Tecnol. de Telecomunicacions de Catalunya (CTTC), Castelldefels, Spain

fYear

2013

Firstpage

196

Lastpage

198

Abstract

This work proposes the use of a thermoelectric generator (TEG) to obtain DC electrical power by harvesting the heat generated in a power amplifier (PA) circuit. A 1 Watt, 2.45 GHz class-E power amplifier is built using microstrip technology and the generated heat and temperature distribution on the PA circuit board are evaluated. Then a commercial TEG is used to recover DC electrical power from this generated heat. Additionally, a thermal circuit model is created and the harvested power is simulated and measured demonstrating a Carnot efficiency of 2.3%. The recovered DC power can be used to power low power sensors and monitoring and control circuitry in the vicinity of the PA.

Keywords

Carnot cycle; UHF power amplifiers; energy harvesting; microstrip circuits; power measurement; temperature distribution; thermoelectric conversion; Carnot efficiency; DC electrical power recovery; PA circuit board; TEG; class-E power amplifier; control circuitry; frequency 2.45 GHz; heat generation; low power sensors; microstrip technology; monitoring circuitry; power 1 W; power measurement; temperature distribution; thermal circuit model; thermal energy harvesting; thermoelectric generator; Integrated circuit modeling; Materials; Power amplifiers; Resistance heating; Temperature measurement; Thermal resistance; energy harvesting; power amplifier; thermal harvesting; thermoelectric generator (TEG);

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Radio and Wireless Symposium (RWS), 2013 IEEE

Conference_Location

Austin, TX

ISSN

2164-2958

Print_ISBN

978-1-4673-2929-3

Electronic_ISBN

2164-2958

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/RWS.2013.6486686

Filename

6486686