An Experimental Study on Step-Up DC–DC Converters for Organic Photovoltaic Cells

08/04/2022

This work studies two circuit topologies to step-up the voltage supplied by an organic photovoltaic (OPV) cell. Comparison and validation of the proposed topologies are accomplished throughout analytical, simulation, and experimental results. Two circuit solutions were found more suitable to boost the harvested OPV cell low voltage, depending on the load condition: the classical hard-switching boost converter and a multilevel boost converter. Both experimental circuits include the drive of the MOSFET switch based on an LC oscillator at 1.2 MHz, allowing the implementation of a conversion system, supplied by voltages as low as 500 mV, with output voltages from 1.2 V up to 7 V, under solar simulator conditions. The circuit area for each converter prototype is 2.35 cm2, with a total area below 3.0 cm2 for the overall energy harvesting system, including the OPV cell, which makes this proposal an extremely compact solution for ultra-low power harvesting applications.

Autores da comunidade :

• 

  J

  João Paulo Neto Torres

  ist46857

  Afiliações e fontes

  IST > DEEC

  Departamento de Engenharia Electrotécnica e de Computadores

  IST > IT

  Instituto de Telecomunicações

  De: scopus

  ID: 2-s2.0-85129206168

  De: orcid

  ID: 119882354

• 

  A

  António Joaquim dos Santos Romão Serralheiro

  ist11703

  Afiliações e fontes

  IST > INESC-ID

  Instituto de Engenharia de Sistemas e Computadores - Investigação e Desenvolvimento em Lisboa

VoR - Versão publicada

MDPI

https://doi.org/10.3390/jlpea12020020

Journal of Low Power Electronics and Applications16

1

16

12

20

2079-9268

10.3390/jlpea12020020

electrical-engineering-electronic-engineering-information-engineering - Engenharia Eletrotécnica, Eletrónica e Informática

Palavras-chave

• energy harvesting
• organic photovoltaic cells
• low voltage
• inductive DC–DC converters

eng - Inglês

Entidade financiadora da bolsa/projeto

Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia

Identificador da Entidade Financiadora: UIDB/50008/2020