Optimised Design Of Thermoelectric Energy Harvesting System For Powering Radio Frequency Switch

• Main Author: Goh, Siew Yun
• Format: Thesis
• Language: English; English
• Published: 2019
• Subjects: T Technology (General); TK Electrical engineering. Electronics Nuclear engineering
• Online Access: http://eprints.utem.edu.my/id/eprint/24610/1/Optimised%20Design%20Of%20Thermoelectric%20Energy%20Harvesting%20System%20For%20Powering%20Radio%20Frequency%20Switch.pdf; http://eprints.utem.edu.my/id/eprint/24610/2/Optimised%20Design%20Of%20Thermoelectric%20Energy%20Harvesting%20System%20For%20Powering%20Radio%20Frequency%20Switch.pdf; http://eprints.utem.edu.my/id/eprint/24610/; https://plh.utem.edu.my/cgi-bin/koha/opac-detail.pl?biblionumber=117079

Thermoelectric generator (TEG) is an energy harvester that converts heat energy into electrical energy. The motivation of this research project to use TEG to harvest energy from heat that dissipated from infrared sunlight, and prove that the electrical energy from TEG is useful for powering electronic device. This research work proposes a self-powered wireless application by using IR light to simulate sunlight spectrum. A PV cell is more common compared to TEG in converting sunlight to electrical energy. However, by complementing PV cell with TEG, it would be more effective in generating useful electrical energy. Another problem is the difficulty of concentration of radiated heat on hot surface of a TEG, which was solved by using heat absorber attached on the hot surface of TEG. Moreover, due to insufficient electrical energy from TEG to power up electronic device, DC to DC convertor is used to boost up voltage output. One of the objectives in this research work is complementary of electrical energy between TEG and PV cell. Moreover, optimisation of electrical energy TEG output for powering wireless devices is also an important objective. In the laboratory setup, an IR light bulb was used to simulate the infrared wavelength of sunlight spectrum that produces heat. Different types of heat absorbers were used to concentrate the radiation heat from IR light bulb to optimize the electrical output from TEG. A DC to DC converter was designed to boost up the electrical voltage generated from the TEG. In this project, two integrated circuits were investigated for comparison, they were LTC 3105 which is with a maximum power point controller and LTC 3108 with is with a power manager. These two circuits were connected to the RF transmitter and compared in term of charging time, discharging time, and electrical output. The TEG and PV cell were placed under the sunlight in open air from 9:00am to 5:00pm to prove that both harvesters complemental with each other. The result showed that the power outputs of TEG with heat absorber and TEG without heat absorber were 407.55uW and 52.99uW, respectively. This proved that the heat absorber optimised the performance of TEG. For the RF transmitter, the signal transmissions using LTC 3108 and LTC 3105 were 0.25s and 1.25s, respectively. This proved that LTC 3105 can handle longer duration of signal transmitting. Lastly, the TEG contributed about 15% electrical output to complemental the PV cell with the same size when exposed to sunlight. The overall result proved that the electrical energy of TEG can be optimised, which is useful for powering low-power electronic devices.