Experimental verification of an AC-DC Boost towards non-periodic (AC) Energy Harvesting

Abstract

While magnetostrictive alloys are very promising for Energy Harvesting applications because of their intrinsic robustness, the available excitations are such that the exploitable voltage ranges are much lower than the electronic standards 1.6, 3.3 and 5 V. Then, an electronic circuit is needed to increase the voltage and improve the conversion. Several conversion techniques have been presented over the years for other smart materials as piezoelectrics, up to commercial products, but very few or none are specialized for magnetostrictive ones. The classical AC-DC Boost converter seems very promising for the purpose. This paper presents the experimental verification of such a converter, driven with a real-time operating Arduino board, able to measure the source time period. Several cases are presented, showing the potential of the circuit.