TY - GEN
T1 - A Tapped-Inductor Buck-Boost Converter for a Dielectric ElectroActive Polymer Generator
AU - Dimopoulos, Emmanouil
AU - Munk-Nielsen, Stig
PY - 2014/3
Y1 - 2014/3
N2 - Energy harvesting applications based on Dielectric ElectroActive Polymer (DEAP) generators have been in the spotlight in recent years after the latter ones’ documented advantages against competing electromagnetic and field-activated technologies. Yet, the need for bidirectional energy flow under high step-up and high step-down voltage conversion ratios, accompanied by low-average but relatively high-peak currents, imposes great challenges on the design of the employed power electronic converter. In addition, the effective operational range of the converter is usually limited by the lack of commercially-available, high-efficient, high-voltage, low-power semiconductor devices. In this paper, a high-efficient bidirectional tapped-inductor buck-boost converter, addressing high step-up and high step-down voltage conversion ratios, is proposed for energy harvesting applications based on DEAP generators. The high-side switch of the converter is replaced by a string of three non-matched, non-thermally-coupled, off-the-shelf MOSFETs, extending its effective operational range. Experiments conducted on a standalone DEAP generator validate the applicability of the proposed converter by demonstrating energy harvesting of 0.42 J, at 0.75 Hz and 60 % delta-strain, characterized by a world-first; energy density equal to 2 J per kg of active material.
AB - Energy harvesting applications based on Dielectric ElectroActive Polymer (DEAP) generators have been in the spotlight in recent years after the latter ones’ documented advantages against competing electromagnetic and field-activated technologies. Yet, the need for bidirectional energy flow under high step-up and high step-down voltage conversion ratios, accompanied by low-average but relatively high-peak currents, imposes great challenges on the design of the employed power electronic converter. In addition, the effective operational range of the converter is usually limited by the lack of commercially-available, high-efficient, high-voltage, low-power semiconductor devices. In this paper, a high-efficient bidirectional tapped-inductor buck-boost converter, addressing high step-up and high step-down voltage conversion ratios, is proposed for energy harvesting applications based on DEAP generators. The high-side switch of the converter is replaced by a string of three non-matched, non-thermally-coupled, off-the-shelf MOSFETs, extending its effective operational range. Experiments conducted on a standalone DEAP generator validate the applicability of the proposed converter by demonstrating energy harvesting of 0.42 J, at 0.75 Hz and 60 % delta-strain, characterized by a world-first; energy density equal to 2 J per kg of active material.
U2 - 10.1109/APEC.2014.6803751
DO - 10.1109/APEC.2014.6803751
M3 - Article in proceeding
SN - 9781479923250
T3 - I E E E Applied Power Electronics Conference and Exposition. Conference Proceedings
SP - 3125
EP - 3131
BT - Proceedings of the 29th Annual IEEE Applied Power Electronics Conference and Exposition, APEC 2014
PB - IEEE Press
T2 - Applied Power Electronics Conference and Exposition, APEC 2014
Y2 - 16 March 2014 through 20 March 2014
ER -