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Video s3
    Details
    Author(s)
    Display Name
    Zihao Fan
    Affiliation
    Affiliation
    Southern University of Science and Technology
    Display Name
    Yunhao Li
    Affiliation
    Affiliation
    Southern University of Science and Technology
    Display Name
    Qiping Wan
    Affiliation
    Affiliation
    Analog Devices Inc.
    Display Name
    Su Yang
    Affiliation
    Affiliation
    Hong Kong Polytechnic University
    Display Name
    Xiaoming Tao
    Affiliation
    Affiliation
    Hong Kong Polytechnic University
    Display Name
    Yuan Gao
    Affiliation
    Affiliation
    Institute of Microelectronics, Agency for Science, Technology and Research
    Abstract

    This paper presents an auto-polarity thermo-electric energy harvesting circuit based on the reconfigurable thermoelectric generator (TEG) array. The auto-polarity function is achieved by simply altering the operating mode of the inverse current detector without adding extra power overhead and hardware cost. In addition, the proposed circuit consists of the TEG array and switches, removing the need for bulky inductor-based or switched-capacitor DC-DC converters. Hill-climbing algorithm is used for maximum power point tracking (MPPT). The operating frequency of the system is 0.2 Hz with overall dynamic power consumption of only 1.2mW. Over a wide range of temperature gradients, the static power is less than 0.1 μW with a peak efficiency of 99.6%.