Efficient Solar Power Management System for Self-Powered IoT Node

Abstract

An efficient micro-scale solar power management architecture for self-powered Internet-of-Things node is presented in this paper. The proposed architecture avoids the linear regulator and presents a complete on-chip switched capacitor based power converter in order to achieve higher end-to-end efficiency. Unlike traditional architectures, where the harvested energy processes twice, the proposed architecture processes the harvested energy only once before it reaches to the load circuit, irrespective of the ambient conditions. In addition to that, a hardware setup is created using commercially available ICs and photovoltaic cells, to validate that the proposed power management system is practically realizable.

Existing System

An efficient on chip power management architecture for solar energy harvesting systems.

Proposed System

An efficient on-chip power management architecture for solar energy harvesting system is presented, which utilizes a single stage DC-DC converter when there is enough ambient energy for maintaining regulation at both the input and load. The proposed architecture utilized the stored energy to maintain regulation when there is insufficient ambient energy to supply the load requirement. The proposed architecture avoids linear regulator and utilizes simple charge pump concept in order to maintain regulation. By utilizing a switching converter instead of a linear regulator, the proposed scheme achieved higher end-to-end efficiency. Simulation, as well as experimental result, are reported to validate the proposed idea.

Architecture

Proposed power management architecture