Load and Power Conditioning

Abstract

Chapter 2 analyzes the power consumption of an autonomous sensor and adds some remarks on voltage regulators. In particular, a review is presented, from the point of view of power consumption, on some of the typical devices found in autonomous sensors such as sensors, microcontrollers and transceivers. A qualitative introduction to the power consumption of sensors and their signal conditioners is first presented. Some tips to be considered for the reduction of the power consumption of typical sensors are mentioned. Then, for the microcontrollers and transceivers, manufacturers’ graphs are used. After that, a general model based on a pulsed current sink is proposed for the whole autonomous sensor and experimentally validated in a particular case. Finally, the topologies more used for voltage regulation and their control strategies are described. Pulse frequency modulation (PFM) is further described as it is the most used control strategy for very low power applications.