Study on the circuit design for passive electromagnetic energy harvesting

• Main Author: Yang, Lin
• Other Authors: Zhu Lei
• Format: Final Year Project
• Language: English
• Published: 2012
• Subjects: DRNTU::Engineering::Electrical and electronic engineering::Electronic circuits; DRNTU::Engineering::Electrical and electronic engineering::Electric power::Production, transmission and distribution
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10356/49738
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

Energy harvesting has been researched and developed for centuries in form of solar power, thermal energy, wind energy, salinity gradients and kinetic energy. In recent years, those technologies have two significant advantages: less environmental pollution and inexhaustible sources.Passive electromagnetic energy harvesting is working in a different way but one thing in common is to produce green energy source with less environmental effects. The aims of this project were to design passive component circuits to scavenge energy from radio or visible light and convert the electromagnetic energy into electric energy at frequency 915MHz. This design includes antenna circuits, tuning circuits, rectifier circuits and energy storage. Different antenna designed as transmitters and receivers with rectifier circuits and energy storage circuits have been examined in detail by using ADS and Protel2004 simulation. The simulation involved antenna shape and gain design, antenna 3D view and impedance matching circuits. The results showed that if the antenna was strong and efficient enough at the input with perfect matching circuits, then it is able to obtain good stable output electric voltages that can be reused or stored for other application load. Two important factors in designing the electromagnetic harvester are the antenna shape and impedances. Some of analyses have been done that indicates that changing the size of antenna length and width changes the antenna impedances that will limit the output voltage ranges. A hardware prototype was successfully achieved to demonstrate that passive electromagnetic energy harvesting system is feasible.