Power management with energy harvesting devices

Traditional power management for battery powered devices does not meet the requirements of energy harvesting systems. Transducers that extract energy from the environment significantly differ from batteries in that their power output is limited. Besides, the energy source can be of variable nature and energy availability can be virtually infinite. Electronic systems that rely on energy harvesting sources have to be harvesting aware designed, both from the hardware and software perspectives. Proper Harvesting Aware Power Management (HAPM) should allow a harvesting system to operate indefinitely and within the expected operational utility. An energy neutral mode of operation can guarantee that the system will operate forever, but not that the utility meets the desired utility. This paper presents an introduction to HAPM, including topologies of Energy Harvesting Systems, the Energy Neutrality Principle and Power Management Techniques.