2014 Volume 11 Issue 13 Pages 20140385
In this paper, a boost converter with fast MPPT capability is proposed for energy harvesting applications. The sampling time for maximum power point voltage, VMPP of harvester device is extremely shortened by using inductor current conservation method and an off-chip input capacitor-less boost converter. The proposed boost converter is designed in a standard 0.13 µm CMOS process and compared with a conventional MPPT boost converter. The proposed architecture can sample VMPP more than 100 times faster than the conventional architecture. Power conversion efficiency of the harvesting system also improves due to the fast VMPP sampling. For the scenario used in this paper, the overall efficiency improves from 70% to 85%. This architecture can be applied to any energy harvesting systems and is especially effective when the ambient parameter such as temperature or light intensity changes relatively rapidly.
