Smart Power Unit—mW-to-nW Power Management and Control for Self-Sustainable IoT Devices


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Date

2021-05

Publication Type

Journal Article

ETH Bibliography

yes

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Abstract

Self-sustainability and intelligence will be critical features of the next generation of Internet of Things devices. Power management circuits need to be energy-efficient in multiple power modes, from nW sleep to mW active, and to support energy harvesting (EH) from multiple environmental sources. This article presents an adaptive and firmware-configurable power supply unit that enables intelligent devices to operate in the sub μW range while achieving self-sustainability through EH. The microcontroller-based design allows efficient conversion from batteries, dc, ac environmental sources, and nA quiescent currents. Source and load power points are decoupled with multiple dc–dc converters aiming to supply loads with adaptive voltage scaling and achieving high reliability. Experimental results show the flexibility and efficiency of this approach: the proposed power supply unit achieves a quiescent current of 54 nA and a maximum peak load current of 300 mA, delivered with an end-to-end power efficiency above 85%. © 2020 IEEE.

Publication status

published

Editor

Book title

Volume

36 (5)

Pages / Article No.

5700 - 5710

Publisher

IEEE

Event

Edition / version

Methods

Software

Geographic location

Date collected

Date created

Subject

Energy harvesting; Energy management; Event detection; Internet of Things; Sensor systems and applications

Organisational unit

03996 - Benini, Luca / Benini, Luca check_circle
01225 - D-ITET Zentr. f. projektbasiertes Lernen / D-ITET Center for Project-Based Learning

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