ABSTRACT
Thermal energy harvesting (TEH) is the process of converting thermal energy to electrical energy by using a thermoelectric generator (TEG) made of thermocouples. This chapter presents a resistor emulation approach and its associated circuitry for harvesting near maximum energy from the thermal energy source. It describes the TEH system and energy conversion effect, discusses the resistor emulation-based maximum power point tracker for THE, and describes its implementation using a direct-current-to-direct-current buck converter. Thermoelectricity describes the relationship between heat flow and electrical potential in conducting materials. Based on the thermal analysis, the thermal energy harvester has been designed to maximize the overall output power of the TEG. The proposed maximum power point (MPP) tracker uses a power converter as an open-loop resistance emulator to naturally track the MPP of the thermal energy harvester with very little control circuit overhead. The optimal TEH wireless sensor node has been successfully implemented in a hardware prototype for laboratory testing.
