PMS FOR TENG

The invention of Triboelectric Nanogenerators (TENG) has significantly increased the demand for low cost and high performance power management circuits that can regulate the energy harvested from TENG. TENG is a cutting-edge technology with the ability to harvest irregular mechanical energy from sources such as human motion, ocean waves, sound waves, machine vibration and so on. For the purpose of power management, the output specification of TENG includes high voltage spike, low current/charge and low frequency of operation. The irregular output characteristics of TENG increases the complexity in the design of low cost and high performance power management circuit.

For easy converter analysis and design, a SPICE model is defined using behavioral voltage source for the open circuit voltage and a bespoke subcircuit model for the time-varying TENG capacitor. Subsequently, a Zener-thyristor module is used to achieve self-powered switching based on the break-down characteristics of the Zener. The proposed power management circuit was verified using LTspice which is a free simulation software widely used in the industry for circuit design and analysis. The circuit yielded an output of about 7.2V.

The total cost of components at bulk price of the TENG PMC is about 1.72USD. The buck-derived TENG power management circuit was designed for self-powered operation and it provides a novel low cost power management circuit which will increase the attractiveness of TENG as a sustainable source of power for numerous applications.