A 15 mV Inductorless Start-up Converter Using a Piezoelectric Transformer for Energy Harvesting Applications

Thomas Martinez (1) , Gaël Pillonnet (2) , François Costa (3)

1 SATIE-EPI - Electronique de Puissance et Intégration
2 CEA-LETI - Commissariat à l'énergie atomique et aux énergies alternatives - Laboratoire d'Electronique et de Technologie de l'Information
3 SATIE - Systèmes et Applications des Technologies de l'Information et de l'Energie

This paper presents an inductor-less start-up converter for a sub-100 mV energy harvester based on an Armstrong oscillator topology using a piezoelectric transformer and a normally-on MOSFET. Two models of the converter have been detailed and validated experimentally for the start-up phase and steady-state operation to respectively determine the minimum start-up input voltage and the voltage gain. The models have been validated experimentally in a setup associating the converter and a thermo-electric generator. Based on a Rosen-type piezoelectric transformer and off-the-shelf components, the proposed start-up topology begins to oscillate at 15 mV and achieves a 1 V output voltage at only 43 mV. Compared to the literature, the topology needs no inductive component and achieves self-starting operation with a smaller input voltage.

Mots clés: Start-up converter; Armstrong oscillator; Piezoelectric transformer; Energy harvesting; Cold-start

Domaines: Electronique

Thomas Martinez, Gaël Pillonnet, François Costa. A 15 mV Inductorless Start-up Converter Using a Piezoelectric Transformer for Energy Harvesting Applications. IEEE Transactions on Power Electronics, 2018, 33 (3), pp.2241-2253. ⟨10.1109/TPEL.2017.2690804⟩. ⟨hal-01735605⟩