This thesis presents an optimal method of designing and controlling an oscillating energy harvesting system. Many new and emerging energy harvesting systems, such as the energy harvesting backpack and ocean wave energy harvesting, capture energy normally expelled through mechanical interactions. Often the nature of the system indicates slow system time constants and unsteady AC voltages. This paper reveals a method for achieving maximum energy harvesting from such sources with fast determination of the optimal operating condition. An energy harvesting backpack, which captures energy from the interaction between the user and the spring decoupled load, is presented in this paper. The new control strategy, maximum energy harvesting control (MEHC), is developed and applied to the energy harvesting backpack system to evaluate the improvement of the MEHC over the basic maximum power point tracking algorithm.

Tire pressure monitoring systems (TPMSs) predict over- and underinflated tires, and warn the driver in critical situations. Today, battery powered TPMSs suffer from limited energy. New sensor features such as friction determination or aquaplaning detection require even more energy and would significantly decrease the TPMS lifetime. Harvesting electrical energy inside the tire of a vehicle has been considered as a promising alternative to overcome the limited lifetime of a battery. However, it is a real challenge to design a system, that generates electrical energy at low velocities while being robust at 200 km/h where radial accelerations up to 20000 m/s2 occur. This work focusses on developing different electromechanical energy transducers that meet the high requirements of the automotive sector. Different approaches are addressed on how the change of acceleration and strain within the tire can be used to provide mechanical energy to the energy harvester. The energy harvester converts the mechanical energy into electrical energy. In this thesis, piezoelectric and electromagnetic transducers are discussed in depth, modelled as electromechanical networks. Since the transducers provide energy in the form of an AC voltage, but sensors require a DC voltage, various common interface circuits are compared, using LTspice and applying method of the stochastic signal analysis. Furthermore, a buck-boost converter concept for the electromagnetic energy harvester is optimized and improved. Experiments on a tire test rig validate the theoretically determined output and confirm that well designed energy harvesters in the tire can generate much more energy than required by an TPMS not only at high velocities but also at velocities as low as 20 km/h.

Energy harvesting of ambient and aeroelastic vibrations is important for reducing the dependence of wireless sensing and networks on batteries. We develop a configuration for a piezoelectric energy harvester with the capability to wirelessly communicate vibration measurements while using those vibrations to power the sensing and communication devices. Particularly, we perform experiments that aim at identifying challenges to overcome in the development of such a configuration. Towards that objective, we successfully tested a self-powered real-time point-to-point wireless communication system between a vibration sensor and transmission and receiving modules. The sensing device and transmission module are powered by the vibrating object using a piezoelectric energy harvester. The communication is established by using two XBee modules. In the second part of this dissertation, we address the optimization of the output power of piezoelectric energy harvesters of aeroelastic vibrations. Given the complexity of high-fidelity simulations of the coupling between the fluid flow, structural response and piezoelectric transduction, we develop and experimentally validate a phenomelogical reduced-order model for energy harvesting from wake galloping. We also develop a high-fidelity simulation for the same phenomena. The modeling and high-fidelity simulations can be a part of a multi-disciplinary optimization framework to be used in the design and operation of galloping-based energy harvesters. / Doctor of Philosophy / Energy harvesting of ambient or flow-induced vibrations is important for reducing the dependence on batteries in wireless sensing and networks to monitor deterioration conditions, environmental pollution or wildlife conservation. Balancing the benefits and shortcomings of a specific approach, namely piezoelctric transduction, for energy harvesting from vibrations, we address a specific challenge related to the development of a configuration that allows for communicating measured vibrations using their power. Furthermore, given the low levels of output power from piezoelectric transduction, we address the need to optimize power output levels through the development of predictive models that depend on geometry and speed of the fluid flow.

Master of Science / Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering / William B. Kuhn and Balasubramaniam Natarajan / This thesis presents an energy harvesting wireless sensor network (EHWSN) architecture customized for use within a space suit. The contribution of this research spans both physical (PHY) layer energy harvesting transceiver design and appropriate medium access control (MAC) layer solutions. The EHWSN architecture consists of a star topology with two types of transceiver nodes: a powered Gateway Radio (GR) node and multiple energy harvesting (EH) Bio-Sensor Radio (BSR) nodes. A GR node works as a central controller to receive data from BSR nodes and manages the EHWSN via command packets; low power BSR nodes work to obtain biological signals, packetize the data and transmit it to the GR node. To demonstrate the feasibility of an EHWSN at the PHY layer, a representative BSR node is designed and implemented. The BSR node is powered by a thermal energy harvesting system (TEHS) which exploits the difference between the temperatures of a space suit's cooling garment and the astronaut's body. It is shown that through appropriate control of the duty-cycle in transmission and receiving modes, it is possible for the transceiver to operate with less than 1mW power generated by the TEHS. A super capacitor, energy storage of TEHS, acts as an energy buffer between TEHS and power consuming units (processing units and transceiver radio). The super capacitor charges when a BSR node is in sleep mode and discharges when the node is active. The node switches from sleep mode to active mode whenever the super capacitor is fully charged. A voltage level monitor detects the system's energy level by measuring voltage across the super capacitor. Since the power generated by the TEHS is extremely low(less than 1mW) and a BSR node consumes relatively high power (approximately 250mW) during active mode, a BSR node must work under an extremely low duty cycle (approximately 0.4%). This ultra-low duty cycle complicates MAC layer design because a BSR node must sleep for more than 99.6% of overall operation time. Another challenge for MAC layer design is the inability to predict when the BSR node awakens from sleep mode due to unpredictability of the harvested energy. Therefore, two feasible MAC layer designs, CSA (carrier sense ALOHA based)-MAC and GRI (gateway radio initialized)-MAC, are proposed in this thesis.

With the threatening of global warming and energy crises, searching for renewable and green energy resources with reduced carbon emissions is one of the most urgent challenges to the sustainable development of human civilization. In the past decades, increasing research efforts have been committed to seek for clean and renewable energy sources as well as to develop renewable energy technologies. Mechanical motion ubiquitously exists in ambient environment and people’s daily life. In recent years, it becomes an attractive target for energy harvesting as a promising supplement to traditional fuel sources and a potentially alternative power source to battery-operated electronics. Until recently, the mechanisms of mechanical energy harvesting are limited to transductions based on piezoelectric effect, electromagnetic effect, electrostatic effect and magnetostrictive effect. Widespread usage of these techniques is likely to be shadowed by possible limitations, such as structure complexity, low power output, fabrication of high-quality materials, reliance on external power sources and little adaptability on structural design for different applications. In 2012, triboelectric nanogenerator (TENG), a creative invention for harvesting ambient mechanical energy based on the coupling between triboelectric effect and electrostatic effect has been launched as a new and renewable energy technology. The concept and design presented in this thesis research can greatly promote the development of TENG as both sustainable power sources and self-powered active sensors. And it will greatly help to define the TENG as a fundamentally new green energy technology, featured as being simple, reliable, cost-effective as well as high efficiency.

The main objectives of this dissertation is to investigate the prospects of embedded thermoelectric devices integrated in a chip package and to develop a design methodology aimed at taking advantage of the on-chip on-demand cooling capabilities of the thermoelectric devices. First a simulation framework is established and validated against experimental results, which helps to study the cooling capabilities of embedded thermoelectric coolers (TEC) in both a transient and steady state. The potential for up to 15°C of total cooling has been shown. The thermal simulation framework allows for rapid assessment of TEC and system level thermal performance. Next, the thesis develops a co-simulation environment that is capable of simulating the thermal and electrical domain and couples them to design intelligent TEC controllers. These controllers are implemented on chip and can leverage the transient cooling capability of the device. The controllers are simulated within the co-simulation environment and their potential to control high power chip events are thoroughly investigated. The system level overheads are considered and discussions on implementation techniques are presented. The co-simulation framework is also extended to allow for simulation of real predictive technology microprocessor cores and their workloads. Finally the thesis implements a fully on-chip autonomous energy system that takes advantage of the TEC in its reverse energy harvesting mode and uses the same device to harvest energy and use the energy to power the on-chip cooling circuit. This increases the overall energy efficiency of the cooler and verifies the TEC control methods.

Recent portable electronic technologies require the power management circuit be efficient, small and cost effective. The switched-capacitor (SC) converter provides a trade-off between the efficiency, the size and the cost that is desirable in many of these new portable technologies. This dissertation investigates different circuit techniques and SC converter topologies to make the SC converters fully adapt to the portable system requirements. To make the SC converter efficient over a wide range of input and output voltages, a family of SC power stages with multiple gain ratio (GR) is developed. Multiple GR allows the converter to provide step-down or step-up voltage conversion while increasing the average efficiency of the converter. These power stages are also capable of providing interleaving regulation that has been proved to be effective in reducing the input and the output noise of the converter. Unlike conventional interleaving, the technique developed in this research uses fewer switches and capacitors. The research also contributes in developing circuit techniques such as charge recycling in the bottom plate parasitic capacitors, local gate driving and adaptive body biasing to reduce the power loss in monolithic SC converter implementation. To control the SC power stage for accurate regulation and fast transient response, a control scheme named adaptive gain/pulse control is developed. The research also investigates the use of multipath compensation scheme in SC converters for ultra fast and low noise performance. The techniques and the topologies developed for SC converters in this research can be effectively implemented in the portable devices to reduce cost, and improve efficiency which leads to longer battery life and circuit implementation using smaller areas.

We are surrounded by enormous amounts of ambient mechanical energy that goes to waste such as rain drops, human footfalls, air flow, ocean waves, just to name a few. If such otherwise wasted mechanical energy can be effective converted into electricity, self-powered electronics are very likely to be realized, which can address the limitations of traditional power supplies in many cases, such as wireless sensor networks. Here in this work, two types of energy-harvesting nanogenerators (NGs) based were studied. For piezoelectric nanogenerators, zinc oxide (ZnO) nanowires (NWs) were used as building blocks to develop integrated NGs based on a number of ZnO NWs instead of a single NW. Two types of integrated NGs were developed, which consist of lateral NW arrays and vertical NW arrays. The electric output power was substantially enhanced compared to the design with a single NW. For triboelectric nanogenerators, triboelectric effect was innovatively used as an effective means of harvesting mechanical energy. The operating principle can be explained by the coupling between triboelectric and electrostatic effect. Two types of operating modes were invented, i.e. contact mode and sliding mode. Triggered by commonly available ambient mechanical energy such as footfalls, the maximum output power reached up to 1.2 W. More importantly, self-powered systems were built by using the NG as a power source. It can provide real time power for up to 600 commercial LED bulbs. This research not only provides the fundamentals for NGs but also demonstrates the practicability of using the self-powered technology in our daily life.

Rodents are essential models for research on fundamental neurological processing and for testing of therapeutic manipulations including drug efficacy studies. Telemetry acquisition from rodents is important in biomedical research and requires a long-term powering method. A wireless power transfer (WPT) scheme is desirable to power the telemetric devices for rodents. This dissertation investigates a WPT system to deliver power from a stationary source (primary coil) to a moving telemetric device (secondary coil) via magnetic resonant coupling. The continuously changing orientation of the rodent leads to coupling loss/problems between the primary and secondary coils, presenting a major challenge. We designed a novel secondary circuit employing ferrite rods placed at specific locations and orientations within the coil. The simulation and experimental results show a significant increase of power transfer using our ferrite arrangement, with improved coupling at most orientations. The use of a medium-ferrite-angled (4MFA) configuration further improved power transfer. Initially, we designed a piezoelectric-based device to harvest the kinetic energy available from the natural movement of the rodent; however, the harvested power was insufficient to power the telemetric devices for the rodents. After designing our 4MFA device, we designed a novel wireless measurement system (WMS) to collect real-time performance data from the secondary circuit while testing WPT systems. This prevents the measurement errors associated with voltage/current probes or coaxial cables placed directly into the primary magnetic field. The maximum total efficiency of our novel WPT is 14.1% when the orientation of the 4MFA is parallel to the primary electromagnetic field, and a current of 2.0 A (peak-to-peak) is applied to the primary coil. We design a novel controllable WPT system to facilitate the use of multiple secondary circuits (telemetric devices) to operate within a single primary coil. Each telemetric device can tune or detune its resonant frequency independently of the others using its internal control algorithm. / Graduate / 2018-04-26

Wireless sensors are an emerging technology that has the potential to revolutionize the monitoring of simple and complex physical systems. One of the biggest challenges with wireless sensors technology is power management and hence cost. A wireless sensor system incapable of managing its power consumption either by maintaining long battery life and/or harvesting from its surroundings, is simply not cost effective. Prolonging or eliminating the battery entirely would reduce the cost of battery replacement and maintenance. A viable family of materials for this purpose is piezoelectric materials because of their inherent ability to convert vibrations into electrical energy. Currently, a wide variety of piezoelectric materials are available and the appropriate choice for harvesting energy depends on their characteristics and properties. In addition to the material choice, energy harvesting circuitry is needed to efficiently convert and filter the signal from the piezoelectric device into a form that can be used by a load (battery). This thesis addresses the theoretical and experimental use of a type of pre-stressed PZT-5A Unimorph called a Thunder® to actively convert mechanical vibrations into useable power. Two types of devices of Thunder diaphragms are used: (1) a composite made of stainless steel, plain polyimide, a piezoelectric layer, plain polyimide, and copper; (2) and a second composite made with the same materials except that micro nickel inclusions are suspended into the polyimide layer. The first type produced a maximum average power of 2,585μW (~2.6mW) with a power density of 1411μW/cm2 (~1.4mW). The maximum total energy was 541,114μJ (~0.54J). The second type produced a maximum average power of 3,800μW (~3.8mW) with a power density of 2,073μW/cm2 (~2mW/cm2). The maximum total energy produced 1,187,939μJ (~1.19J). Based on these energy calculations, it was found that a plain polyimide diaphragm could theoretically charge a 1000mA-hr battery in a range from 3.32 hours to 32.32 hours depending on the energy harvesting circuit while nickel polyimide diaphragm could charge it in a range from 3.38 hours to 20.01 hours. These results show that THUNDER can effectively generate power from a steady sinusoidal source at frequencies below 10 Hz for the charging of batteries or for directly powering a device.