Nowadays, as aging population increasing yearly, the health care technologies for elder people who commonly have high blood pressure or Glaucoma issues have attracted much attention. In order to care of those people, implantable integrated circuits (ICs) in human body are the direct solution to have 24/7 days monitoring with real-time data for diagnosis by patients themselves or doctors. However, due to the small size requirement for the implanted ICs located in human organs, it's quite challenging to integrate with transmitting and receiving antenna in a single chip, especially operating in 5.8-GHz ISM band. This research proposes a new idea to solve the issue of integrating an on-chip antenna with implanted ICs. By adding an additional dielectric substrate upon the layer of silicon oxide in CMOS technology, utilizing the metal-6, it can form an extremely compact 3D-structure on-chip antenna which is able to be placed in human eye, heart or even in a few mm-diameter vessels. The proposed 3D on-chip antenna is only 1x1x2.8 mm3 with -10 dB gain and 10% efficiency, which has capability to communicate at least within 5 cm distance. The entire implanted battery-less wireless system has also been developed in this research. A designed 30% efficiency Native NMOS rectifier could generate 1 V and 1 mA to supply the designed low power transmitter including voltage-controlled oscillator (VCO) and power amplifier (PA). The entire system performance is well evaluated by link budget analysis and the simulation result demonstrates the possibility and feasibility of future on-demand easy-to-design implantable SoC.

Ultrafast charge and electron transfer, primary events in artificial photosynthesis, are key in solar energy harvesting. This dissertation provides insight into photo-induced charge and electron transfer in the donor and acceptor constructs built using a range of donor and acceptor entities, including transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs, molybdenum disulfide (MoS2), and tungsten disulfide (WS2)), N-doped graphene, diketopyrrolopyrrol (DPP), boron-dipyrromethene (BODIPY), benzothiadiazole (BTD), free base and metal porphyrins, zinc phthalocyanine (ZnPc), phenothiazine (PTZ), triphenylamine (TPA), ferrocene (Fc), fullerene (C60), tetracyanobutadiene (TCBD), and dicyanoquinodimethane (DCNQ). The carefully built geometries and configurations of the donor and (D), acceptor (A), with a spacer in these constructs promote intramolecular charge transfer, and intervalence charge transfer to enhance charge and electron transfer efficiencies. Steady-state UV-visible absorption spectroscopy, fluorescence and phosphorescence spectroscopies, electrochemistry (cyclic voltammetry (CV) and differential pulse voltammetry (DPV)), spectroelectrochemistry (absorption spectroscopy under controlled potential electrolysis), transient absorption spectroscopy, and quantum mechanical calculations (density functional theory, DFT) are used to probe ground and the excited state events as well as excited state charge separation resulting in cation and anion species. The current findings are useful for the increased reliance on renewable energy resources, especially solar energy.

Massive deployment of wireless IoT (Internet of Things) devices makes replacement or recharge of batteries expensive and impractical for some applications. Energy harvesting is a promising solution, and various designs are proposed to harvest power from ambient resources including thermal, vibrational, solar, wind, and RF sources. Among these ambient resources, AC powerlines are a stable energy source in an urban environment. Many researchers investigated methods to exploit this stable source of energy to power wireless IoT devices. The proposed circuit aims to harvest energy from AC powerlines with a wide input range of from 10 to 50 A. The proposed system includes a wake-up circuit and is capable of cold-start. A buck-boost converter operating in DCM is adopted for impedance matching, where the impedance is rather independent of the operation conditions. So, the proposed system can be applied to various types of wireless sensor nodes with different internal impedances. Experimental results show that the proposed system achieves an efficiency of 80.99% under the powerline current of 50 A. / M.S. / Nowadays, with the magnificent growth of IoT devices, a reliable, and efficient energy supply system becomes more and more important, because, for some applications, battery replacement is very expensive and sometimes even impossible. At this time, a well-designed self-contained energy harvesting system is a good solution. The energy harvesting system can extend the service life of the IoT devices and reduce the frequency of charging or checking the device. In this work, the proposed circuit aims to harvest energy from the AC power lines, and the harvested power intends to power wireless sensor nodes (WSNs). By utilizing the efficient and self-contained EH system, WSNs can be used to monitor the temperature, pressure, noise level and humidity etc. The proposed energy harvesting circuit was implemented with discrete components on a printed circuit board (PCB). Under a power line current of 50 A @ 50 Hz, the proposed energy harvesting circuit can harvest 156.6 mW, with a peak efficiency of 80.99 %.

Implantable biomedical wireless sensors provide monitoring of vital health signs such as oxygen, temperature and intraocular pressure and may help to analyse and detect diseases in humans and animals. However, one of the design challenges of implantable devices is providing a safe and reliable energy source. Replaceable batteries are one of the most common methods for powering up implantable devices and have been used in e.g.cardiac pacemakers for decades. However, the need for a regular battery replacement may require surgical incisions. Multiple studies have been done on energy harvesting from ambient energy sources to provide the required power for the operation of the implantable sensor and thus reducing the need for battery replacement. In this work, a circuit-level radio frequency (RF) energy harvesting system has been designed and simulated in 65 nm CMOS process technology. The system consists of an AC-DC converter, a DC-DC converter, a Ring oscillator, a Buffer, and a Voltage sensor with comparators, dividers and a reference generator. The rectifier operates at a frequency of 900 MHz and offers a power conversion efficiency (PCE) of 71%. The doubler works at 50 MHz with a voltage conversion efficiency (VCE) of 98%. Additionally, the Voltage sensor monitors the voltage level of the energy-storing unit, that in this project is intended to be an mm-size rechargeable battery. If the voltage level is equal to or higher than a threshold value, Vref, the harvesting system will be in discharging mode. Similarly, if the voltage level is below Vref, then the system will be in charging mode.

Smart devices capable of harvesting their own energy have advantages over their wired or battery-powered alternatives including improved portability, simplified installation, and reduced maintenance and operating costs. This thesis studies energy harvesting technology through a case study of a solar-powered motorized window shade. An analytical and experimental evaluation of window attenuation found that windows reduced the ability of solar cells to produce photocurrent by 30%-70%. This still allows significant potential to power small electronics so a prototype motorized window blind was designed and assembled. The solar array was mounted to the roller blind's bottom rail and power is conveyed to the control electronics and motor in the unit’s top cylinder through wires embedded in the shade’s fabric. A simple battery system was implemented to ensure the prototype could remain powered in the absence of light. Various forms of powerflow in the prototype were evaluated. Experimental evaluation of joule heating within the conductive textile indicates that a temperature gradient that is less than 10 °C develops, meaning it is safe for use. The prototype was designed with artificial friction to prevent the blinds from slipping when not in use. An experimentally validated motor model was developed and used to determine that the system could use up to 46% less energy if the artificial friction was removed. A pseudo-empirical system model was developed to simulate the interaction between system electronics. Simulation results indicate that the system would remain consistently powered if placed behind a south-facing window that receives a consistent supply of direct sunlight and attenuates that light by less than 75%. These results also indicate that the unit would remain powered in the absence of light for 13 days. Similar methods could be used to evaluate future energy harvesting systems. / Thesis / Master of Applied Science (MASc)

Vibration converters based on piezoelectric materials are currently becoming increasingly important for powering low-power wireless sensor nodes and wearable electronic devices. Piezoelectric materials generate variable electrical charges under mechanical stress, requiring an energy management interface to meet load requirements. Resonant interfaces like Parallel Synchronized Switch Harvesting on Inductor (P-SSHI) are highly efficient and robust to energy sources and loads variations. Nevertheless, SSHI circuits require synchronous switch control for efficient energy transfer. At irregular excitation, SSHI circuits may not perform optimally because the resonant frequency of the circuit is typically tuned to match the frequency of the energy source, which in the case of footsteps can be irregular and unpredictable. In addition, the circuit may also be susceptible to noise and interference from irregular excitations, which can further affect its performance. The aim is to design a self-powered energy management solution that can operate autonomously even at low frequencies and for irregular chock excitations, while at the same time allowing higher energy flow to the energy storage device and maintaining high levels of energy efficiency. To evaluate the performance of the proposed circuit, a piezoelectric shoe insole is designed and used for testing with different storage capacitance values and loads as a proof of the circuit’s adaptability to various loading conditions.:1 Introduction 2 Theoretical background 3 State of the art of piezoelectric energy harvesting interfaces 4 Novel approach of SP-PSSHI piezoelectric energy harvesting interface 5 Experimental investigations 6 Conclusions and Outlook

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We model different nonlinear systems, analyze their nonlinear aspects and discuss their applications. First, we present a semi-analytical, geometrically-exact, unsteady potential flow model is developed for airfoils undergoing large amplitude maneuvers. Towards this objective, the classical unsteady theory of Theodorsen is revisited by relaxing some of the major assumptions such as (1) flat wake, (2) small angle of attack, (3) small disturbances to the mean flow components, and (4) time-invariant free-stream. The kinematics of the wake vortices is simulated numerically while the wake and bound circulation distribution and, consequently, the associated pressure distribution are determined analytically. The steady and unsteady behaviors of the developed model are validated against experimental and computational results. The model is then used to determine the lift frequency response at different mean angles of attack. Second, we investigate the nonlinear characteristics of an autoparametric vibration system. This system consists of a base structure and a cantilever beam with a tip mass. The dynamic equations for the system are derived using the extended Hamilton's principle. The method of multiple scales is then used to analytically determine the stability and bifurcation of the system. The effects of the amplitude and frequency of the external force, the damping coefficient and frequency of the attached cantilever beam and the tip mass on the nonlinear responses of the system are determined. As an application, the concept of energy harvesting based on the autoparametric vibration system consisting of a base structure subjected to the external force and a cantilever beam with a tip mass is evaluated. Piezoelectric sheets are attached to the cantilever beam to convert the vibrations of the base structure into electrical energy. The coupled nonlinear distributed-parameter model is developed and analyzed. The effects of the electrical load resistance on the global frequency and damping ratio of the cantilever beam are analyzed by linearizion of the governing equations and perturbation method. Nonlinear analysis is performed to investigate the impacts of external force and load resistance on the response of the harvester. Finally, the concept of harvesting energy from ambient and galloping vibrations of a bluff body is investigated. A piezoelectric transducer is attached to the transverse degree of freedom of the body in order to convert the vibration energy to electrical power. A coupled nonlinear distributed-parameter model is developed that takes into consideration the galloping force and moment nonlinearities and the base excitation effects. The aerodynamic loads are modeled using the quasi-steady approximation. Linear analysis is performed to determine the effects of the electrical load resistance and wind speed on the global damping and frequency of the harvester as well as on the onset of instability. Then, nonlinear analysis is performed to investigate the impact of the base acceleration, wind speed, and electrical load resistance on the performance of the harvester and the associated nonlinear phenomena. Short- and open-circuit configurations for different wind speeds and base accelerations are assessed. / Ph. D.