An Efficient Power Management System Using Dynamically Configured Multiple Triboelectric Nanogenerators and Dual‐Parameter Maximum Power Point Tracking

Abstract

AbstractTriboelectric nanogenerators (TENGs) have shown great potential as sustainable energy sources with the advantages of a lightweight, low cost, simple fabrication, and small size. Nevertheless, schemes for efficient power extraction from TENGs remains difficult, partly because of their short, high‐voltage (HV) pulse output. The available power from a single TENG is not usually enough for practical applications. An efficient power management system for TENGs using a dynamically reconfigured combining method and dual‐parameter maximum power point tracking (MPPT) is proposed. A series to parallel/parallel to series (SPPS) adaptive control method, which dynamically reconfigures the connection of multiple TENGs, efficiently combines the outputs. An MPPT method, which adjusts the dual parameters in a closed‐loop, provides a wide range for matching the high output impedance (≈MΩ) of TENGs. The proposed technique is implemented using a 416 nW energy harvester interface integrated circuit (EHI‐IC), realized using a 180 nm, 48 V Bipolar‐CMOS‐DMOS (BCD) process. Measured results show that the proposed approach achieves a 159‐fold improvement in power extraction compared to the results without EHI‐IC. Finally, a triboelectric energy harvesting ball (T‐EHB), which combines 12 TENG pairs for multi‐axis excitation, and several examples of device powering are presented using the T‐EHB.