Renewable energy harvesting for low power wireless monitoring networks

Abstract—Energy Harvesting Technologies for wireless electronics networks have undergone a tremendous development in the recent past. Several micro level energy generating units have been developed to convert variety of renewable energy sources to useable electrical energy. In order to integrate and exploit maximum benefits from renewable sources, an intelligent power electronics interface is mandatory. This paper presents a multiport power electronics circuitry to extract maximum energy from renewable energy sources and route it to power up wireless electronics networks. This new topology has ability to cope with different voltage level requirements and is capable of integrating several energy sources to satisfy the variable load demands. The sources can be utilized independently or concurrently. Surplus energy can also be stored and made available in case of absence of renewable energy sources. Analytical and simulation results in Continuous Conduction mode are presented and are validated by experimental results on a prototype model.