Environment and Application Testbed for Low-Power Energy Harvesting System Design

Abstract

Energy harvesting systems strongly depend on the non-deterministic behavior of the environment. Systematic and thorough evaluation of these systems demands for tools that consistently reproduce these conditions and allow for closely integrating highly dynamic applications. To this end, a testbed is introduced that allows to precisely and repeatedly force an energy harvesting system under test using thermal and radiative sources in a controlled environment while allowing to sinking arbitrary current profiles. The coordinated control of the boundary conditions on the in- and output side enables detailed evaluation, exploration and dimensioning of different aspects of energy management and harvesting systems. By reproducing environmental traces at a higher rate than normally occurring in nature, the testbed allows to substantially shorten the time needed for experimental evaluations. This approach enables fast and consistent evaluation of energy harvesting systems under a wide coverage of operating conditions. © 2020 IEEE.