Research Article
A Solar Energy Harvester with an Improved MPPT Circuit for Wearable IoT Applications
@INPROCEEDINGS{10.4108/eai.15-12-2016.2267622, author={Taiyang Wu and MD Shamsul Arefin and Jean-Michel Redoute and Mehmet Yuce}, title={A Solar Energy Harvester with an Improved MPPT Circuit for Wearable IoT Applications}, proceedings={11th International Conference on Body Area Networks}, publisher={ACM}, proceedings_a={BODYNETS}, year={2017}, month={4}, keywords={energy harvesting photovoltaic mppt wearable sensor bluetooth low energy}, doi={10.4108/eai.15-12-2016.2267622} }- Taiyang Wu
MD Shamsul Arefin
Jean-Michel Redoute
Mehmet Yuce
Year: 2017
A Solar Energy Harvester with an Improved MPPT Circuit for Wearable IoT Applications
BODYNETS
EAI
DOI: 10.4108/eai.15-12-2016.2267622
Abstract
One of the main issues of wearable IoT devices is the limited battery technology. Energy harvesting will be a key development for health and fitness oriented wearable devices that can measure signals continuously. In this paper, an analog maximum power point tracking (MPPT) circuit is presented to power a wearable pulse sensor with a Bluetooth low energy (BLE) module for transmission. The proposed MPPT algorithm uses only the output current to extract the maximum power from a flexible solar panel. The whole energy harvesting system was implemented and tested. Experiment results validate that the solar energy harvester has an overall efficiency of 66.5% and can provide sufficient power for the measurement of the pulse sensor and transmission with a BLE module.