Minimizing switching time of energy harvesting management circuit

Energy management circuit is a mediator circuit between energy harvesting device and a load circuit. It operates without stable DC supply voltage which varies from 0 V to voltage level required by load circuit. Energy management circuit monitors the amount of energy collected from energy harvester and turns on and off the load circuit. With very low instantaneous power available from energy harvester, the energy management circuit must have as-low-as-possible power consumption. The problem is that with decrease of power consumption, the switching time increases proportionally. This paper proposes an energy management circuit with minimized switching time independent of power consumption. The proposed circuit is evaluated through simulations and laboratory measurements on a developed prototype. Evaluation has confirmed that the switching time of the proposed design is independent of power consumption and it depends only on the propagation delay time and transition time of MOS transistors used.