DEVELOPMENT OF A LOW VOLTAGE AC TO DC CONVERTER FOR MESO AND MICRO ENERGY HARVESTERS
Farid Ullah Khan*, Tashfeen Ali*, Khubroo Jamil*
ABSTRACT
Energy harvesting is widely used for the operation of wireless sensor nodes. Most of the energy harvesters generated
voltage levels are sinusoidal or random in nature, moreover, the output voltage levels these produce are in
low (in mV range). For sensor operation, in order to convert this low AC voltage levels into relatively high DC
voltage DC, a three stage Cockcroft Walton converter is developed. The paper presents fabrication and characterization
of a 3 stage Low Voltage Cockcroft-Walton converter in an area of 5.5 x 3.3 cm2. The converter was capable
of converting a minimum AC voltage amplitude of 10 mV with a transformation factor of 6.5. The variation in the
input frequency had almost no effect on the DC output voltage of the converter. Upon integration of the converter
to different energy harvesters, the converter successfully rectified the AC or random output voltage signals of the
harvesters into corresponding DC voltage.
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