Abstract
A burst-transfer controller utilizing a boost converter for efficient charging of supercapacitors under low supply-power conditions (BurstCap) is presented. Efficient operation is achieved through maximum power transfer point (MPTP)-based burst-transfer control while mitigating leakage of the reservoir supercapacitor by means of a two-stage supercapacitor topology. Our experimental results show that, within an optimal burst-transfer window of 50 mV, BurstCap achieves up to 90% charging efficiency while under low supply-power conditions (short-circuit current of 3 mA and open-circuit voltage of 0.9 V). In addition, we observed a two-fold increase in charging current compared to conventional maximum power point tracking (MPPT) charging schemes. Applying our charging scheme may be beneficial for powering solar or wind-based wireless sensor nodes in remote environments as well as subwatt-scale power sources such as microbial fuel cells, thermoelectric generators, and galvanic corrosion sources.
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