Simulation of an Energy Harvesting Circuit for Low
Power Application
Mohd Sofwan bin Mohd Resali
College of Engineering
(Mechanical Engineering Department)
Universiti Tenaga Nasional (UNITEN)
Selangor, Malaysia
Mohdsofwan@gmail.com
Abstract— One of the challenges in harvesting energy from
ambient is to convert and store the usable power effectively. In
this context, there is a need to understand and design an efficient
energy harvesting power management circuitry. In view of the
issues, this paper focuses on the simulation of an energy
harvesting circuit for low power application. The circuit consists
of a full-bridge AC-DC rectifier as target for the power input Pin
more than 10mW, energy storage super capacitor by using
switch-mode charge capacitor method, comparator or voltage
multiplier circuit as to let the storage capacitor to store at the
enough power before supply it to the load circuit and micro-
power step-down regulator with a single supply voltage in the
range of 3.2 – 34 V.
Keywords-component: AC-DC rectifier, energy storage super
capacitor, comparator, step-down regulator.
I. INTRODUCTION
There has been significant increase in the research on
vibration-based energy harvesting for low power applications
in recent years. This is due to smaller electronics applications
such as wireless and mobile electronics and the demand for
better lifespan of batteries. The application such as for
wireless medical implants and embedded sensors in buildings
and similar structures as just a few many examples. The trends
are now to develop micro power generators and generate
sufficient power to drive low power electronic devices such as
smart wireless sensors that consume less than a few milliwats
[1,2].
One of the applications for energy harvesting is the wireless
sensor networks condition monitoring. Devilliers et al. [3]
presented energy harvesting wireless sensor network (WSN)
condition monitoring of high voltage transformers to actively
monitor, predict and identify causes of failures. But the most
challenging on WSN is to maintain a very good stable power
source has always been required [4].
978-1-4244-7398-4/10/$26.00 ©2010 IEEE
Hanim Salleh (Assoc.Prof)
College of Engineering
(Mechanical Engineering Department)
Universiti Tenaga Nasional (UNITEN)
Selangor, Malaysia
Hanim@uniten.edu.my
As to get a very good stable power source to the load circuit
as an example microcontroller, RF module, and input sensor
with analog circuit, a good power management circuit is
required to manage power source from generator. This paper
will discuss on the power management circuit system of what
to do with the electrical energy once it has been harvested
from the ambient power generator that was convert energy
from ambient energy to the electrical energy.
The challenging also come from how to make the energy
harvesting power management system become better lifespan
for long time usage and become more portable device.
Comparatively little discussion between super capacitor and
batteries for energy storage also will describe into this paper.
The standalone power management circuit here means that
this energy harvesting power management system can enable
electronic devices to be completely self sustaining so that
battery maintenance can eventually be eliminated in some
electronic applications. Therefore in some electronic
applications, the ambient energy sources can be considered to
replace the usage of batteries which can minimize product
maintenance, operating cost and user friendly as it will
become more portable device [5].
Super capacitors are increasing use in the energy harvesting
field because it has several advantages to act as a stand-alone
device compare to batteries usage. The advantages of the
supercacitors:
• More charge/discharge cycles
• Higher power density
• Higher cycle efficiency
• Longer life time
• Lower toxicity of material used
• Easier State of Charge (SoC) estimation
This paper studied forms a standalone power
management system for an energy harvesting vibration based
as the power sources will come from piezoelectric generated
898 IPEC 2010
power. This power management will present the electrical AC-
DC rectifying energy harvesting, energy storage, comparator
circuit and micro power step down regulator circuit.
II. BACKGROUND INFORMATION

Figure 1 represents basic energy harvesting power

management circuit. The power management system consists
of three main stages; the full bridge rectifier to rectify AC
voltage to DC voltage, a super capacitor for storage energy
and DC-DC step down or step up voltage circuit.
Figure 2. Basic power management energy harvesting circuit

Source Energy Storage The average VDO represent for the DC voltage after rectifier is
Rectifier Load
Input and Power
(AC-DC) Circuit
Management
VDO = √2Vssinωt (where ω=2πf and ωT/2=π) (1)

After integrating,
Figure 1. Basic power management energy harvesting circuit
VDO = 2/π (√2VS)
The current pulses from power generator, in this case from
piezoelectric phase are in AC wave-form. A set of diode in the
circuit will rectify the AC wave-form from each of the four B. Energy Storage
phases and produce DC pulses of current that charge the DC rectified voltage then will start to charge it into the
storage capacitor in steps. This capacitor also is used for super capacitor as an electrical energy until it have enough
smoothing voltage from rectifier which is suitable for most of energy to start supply it to the electronic load device. The
electronic device. Power is provided from the storage easiest and the cheapest way to charge a super capacitor from
capacitor to an integrated DC-DC converter IC which starts DC rectify voltage is charge a super capacitor directly by
operation. This switch is part of a standard forward, or buck connecting the super capacitor parallel across the output AC-
converter that converts the energy stored in the capacitor to a DC rectifier terminal as show in Figure 3.
regulated step down DC voltage. The output voltage from DC-
DC regulator is suitable for all electronic devices in the load
circuit which is produce a stable voltage.
Vs
A. Rectifier Circuit
Tabesh et al. [6] proposed a voltage doublers rectifier
stand-alone circuitry for harvesting energy from a
piezoelectric micro-power generator. But the limitation of the
proposed design using voltage doublers rectifier is it only
useful for power (Pin) ranges less than 0.5mW due to not
efficient as to control circuit’s power loss. The second
Figure 3. Super capacitor charge directly from the output AC-DC rectifier
limitation is voltage doublers rectifier required a high voltage
filter capacitor compared to the full bridge AC-DC rectifier.
Ottman et al. [7] proposed full bridge rectifier circuit with The limitation of the charge super capacitor using this
optimization using step-down converter with power input (Pin) method is when at the initial discharge super capacitor Cs, the
more than 10mW. Therefore for this application will use full- energy harvester is biased at 0V and look likes no power [8].
bridge AC-DC rectifier as a target for the (Pin) more than It will effects on the efficiency ≈ 0 altough the capacitor will
10mW. Figure 2 show full bridge AC-DC rectifier. charge. The other limitation is it does not provide the end user
operation information. Operation information is very
important as for indication for end user to know on how much
the power alredy generated.

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 Switch mode super capacitor charging is proposed as to
eliminate the limitation of the direct charging super capacitor.
Figure 4 shows simple switch mode supercapacitor .
Figure 4. Switch mode super capacitor charging
Figure 4 shows the that it are consist of C1 and C2 for
smoothing the voltage from Vcc which is voltage DC after
rectifier (Vrect). The electrical energy will start store at super
capacitor Cs after through the P-Channle MOSFET (PMOS).
The energy accumulated at the storage capacitor will start
supply it to the electronic load circuit.
Figure 5. Comparison between switch mode charge capacitor and direct
charge capacitor
Figure 5 shows the comparison between switch mode
charge capacitor and direct charge capacitor interm of
charging time. The super capacitor is fully charge at almost
same time for both of the charge storage capacitor method.
But for the switch mode charge capacitor it was showing the
generated voltage that was store in the super capacitor step by
step. This is very good information to the end user on to know
how much power already generated into the super capacitor.
For this simulation the super capacitor value is 1000μF by
using full bridge rectifier and 13V AC voltage at frequency
100Hz input.
900
C. Comparator
Torah et al. [9] reported on the self-powered autonomous
wireless sensor node using vibration energy harvesting. It
proposed a cold start circuit act as energy storage or voltage
generated comparator before start to turn on the
microcontroller and other electronic circuit. The minimum
voltage that requires to turning on the microcontroller is
2V.
Figure 6. Supercapacitor voltage with and without cold start circuit.
Figure 6 [9] shows that why it need for the cold start circuit
or comparator circuit as to turn on the electronic load. If
without comparator circuit, voltage on super capacitor storage
will always flow it power to the electronic circuit and it will
never reach a minimum voltage that requires to turn on
microprosessor circuit. But with the comparator circuit by
using a TOREX XC616 device (voltage level detector), the
voltage store at supercapacitor will never supply to the
microprosessor circuit until it reach a minimum voltage to turn
microprosessor. In this case is 2V.
Figure 7. Supercapacitor voltage with and without comparator circuit.
Figure 7 show the simulation result for this an energy
harvesting circuit for low power application with and without
comparator circuit. For the energy harvesting circuit without
comparator device it just can store the voltage until 3.2V and
never reach the fully charge to extract more power. But for the
energy harvesting with comparator circuit, the comparator
device will start to turn on when the voltage across the
capacitor is reach the threshold voltage Vth 8.2V. In this stage
super capacitor have more power to supply to the electronic
load for at least the minimum power it require. Beside that by
using comparator device it allow the energy harvesting circuit
to get a fully charge. In this simulation, the input is set at 10V
AC voltage with frequency 100Hz. The storage capacitor
charge is applying switch mode capacitor charge. While the
electronic load is DC-DC regulator circuit with resistive load
at the output.
The other funcntion for the comparator circuit or voltage
detector is it use to set the lower threshold voltage (VTH Low)
and high threshold voltage (VTH High). The function of the VTH
Low and VTH High is when we want to measure the super
capacitor storage value. This will be explain at other section.
D. DC-DC Step Down Regulator
Most of the low power electronic device applications
require small input voltage range from 3.0V to 5.0V. They
also need for the stable voltage input signal. It means they
require for the voltage signal without ripple signal waveform
that was not stable. The DC-DC micro-power step down
regulator will use in this an energy harvesting circuit as first to
step down the electronic load input voltage and secondly to
produce the very stable input signal without ripple. Most of
the DC-DC step down regulator nowadays has much option
for the output voltage by using one device. As an example
LTC 1934 step down regulator we can program it at the output
pin whether the output is 3V, 3.3V or 5V.
III. SIMULATION DESIGN
In this simulation design it is use AC voltage sources for
representing the micro-power piezoelectric as a transducer to
capture the energy and convert from mechanical energy to
electrical energy. The output voltage produced by the generator
is an AC nature and varies depending on the magnitude of the
vibration source and is therefore not suitable to power
electronic device directly [3]. This circuit was designed to
rectify first an AC input voltage to the power management
circuitry and transform the output signal of the piezoelectric
generator into a useable DC voltage.
The input AC voltage sources are set up the output voltages
ranges from 0 – 16V. The entire load electronic device such as
microcontroller or sensor network requires a stable DC input.
The piezoelectric generator does not produced sufficient power
output to operate the load electronic devices directly. This
energy harvesting power management must fulfill to operate
as: have a steady output DC voltage to the electronic load
circuit and willing to store enough energy first before to
operate to electronic load circuit. Figure 8 shows base from the
prototype energy harvesting power management circuit.
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Figure 8. Simulation design for an energy harvesting circuit for low power
application
The output voltage from piezoelectric generator was
rectified first by a full bridge rectifier. The rectify voltage
which is varying DC voltage then stored in a capacitor Cs. The
size of Cs is dependent on the energy needed for the duration of
the application. The energy needed at least for one transmission
data cycle. The calculation for the size capacitor storage Cs is:
Cs=2.Energy (2)
2
Vi – Vf 2
Where Energy is the total energy needed for the load circuit
that will supply from Cs. Vi2 is the Vintial is the initial voltage
the capacitor is charged to, and Vfinal is the voltage the
capacitor is discharged to. The consideration for total energy
that will use at the load circuit is including start up, sensing,
processing of gathered data and transmitting of data. Base on
the equation (2) and expected total energy at the load circuit a
1100μF was used for Cs. Electrolytic capacitor were chosen
due to low cost, low leakage and high capacitance per unit
volume. By increasing the value of Cs it will take a longer
charging period.
The output of Cs cannot directly connect to the load circuit
as the load circuit will continuously draw the energy from Cs
and not allow the piezoelectric generator to charge back the
capacitor at the required voltage. The LTC1540 nano power
comparator [10] and LT1934 micro-power step-down
switching regulator [11] form a buffer circuit as to allow the Cs
to charge. As mentioned earlier, the output from regulator will
produce the stable DC voltage as required at the load circuit.
The piezoelectric generator will always give energy to the
Cs which will cause the voltage increase across the capacitor.
By using LT1540 adjustable comparator, this comparator will
start to enables when voltage across the capacitor reached the
top threshold voltage, in this case is 8.2V. This comparator will
allow the capacitor to charge up to 8.2V before the energy was
transferred through regulator to the load circuit. The regulator
output is 3V which is already considered as the maximum
voltage supply at load circuit. Once the voltage at the capacitor
dropped to the lower threshold 3.2V, the comparator will start
to turn off and the capacitor will start to recharge again from
the piezoelectric power generator.
 IV. RESULT AND DISCUSSION
Figure 9. Simulation result for an energy harvesting circuit low power
application.
Figure 9 show the simulation result for the simulation
design an energy harvesting low power application. The
simulation design and simulation result output is simulate by
using Linear Technology Corporation’s LTspiceIV. Based on
Figure 9 it shows for the supercapacitor it will take around 50
sec for fully charge. When the voltage across the super
capacitor reach the threshold voltage of the comparator device,
it will self powered the device. In this case when voltage
across super capacitor reach the 8.2V. The comparator device
will start to enable the DC-DC micro step-down converter and
the output pin is set to produce output voltage at 3.0V.
V. CONCLUSION
The choice of the AC-DC rectifier must be depend on the
type of ambient energy type and also in this case a piezoelectric
micro-power generator characteristic. If the an energy
harvesting power management circuit is targeted for the real
application end user product, the one most important thing is to
show the end user information on how much power was
generated by real time application. The switch-mode charge
capacitor storage is applied in this paper dedicated for that
purpose. This paper also present on the comparator or voltage
detector circuit for an energy harvesting power management
circuit as to sure that capacitor storage will store with the
enough energy first before start to supply it to then electronic
load circuit. The selection for the storage capacitor value and
the range of the voltage is depending on the energy
requirements of the load circuit and also the micro-power
generated. The best selection is the lowest power of the power
dissipation of the load circuit and the highest power that can be
generated by micro-power generator. By power load
dissipation it will be make smaller value for the storage
capacitor and the charging time become faster and the recharge
cycle also decrease.
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VI. FURTHER WORK
As for further work, it will start to fabricate this simulation
design for an energy harvesting power management into
printed circuit board (PCB) as a hardware prototype and
compare it with the simulation result. Simulation design still
need to improve as to get better efficiency result. For the PCB
prototype design it will test with the piezoelectric micro-power
generator as the actual input for an energy harvesting power
management for low power application. For the final
application this simulation design targeted to connect with the
wireless sensor network as the load.
VII. ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The authors would like to acknowledge the funding from
the TNBR (grant number RJ010090427) for the project an
energy harvesting power management module for wireless
sensor network.
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