Lopez-Gasso, A. (Alberto)
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- Power management unit for solar energy harvester assisted batteryless wireless sensor node.(MDPI, 2022-10) Solar-Ruiz, H. (Hector); Berenguer-Pérez, R.J. (Roque José); Lopez-Gasso, A. (Alberto); Beriain, A. (Andoni)This work describes an energy-efficient monolithic Power Management Unit (PMU) that includes a charge pump adapted to photovoltaic cells with the capability of charging a large supply capacitor and managing the stored energy efficiently to provide the required supply voltage and power to low energy consumption wireless sensor nodes such as RFID sensor tags. The proposed system starts-up self-sufficiently with a light source luminosity equal to or higher than 500 lux using only a 1.42 cm(2) solar cell and integrating an energy monitor that gives the ability to supply autonomous sensor nodes with discontinuous operation modes. The system occupies an area of 0.97 mm(2) with a standard 180 nm CMOS technology. The half-floating architecture avoids losses of charging the top/button plate of the stray capacitors in each clock cycle. Measurements' results on a fabricated IC exhibit an efficiency above 60% delivering 13.14 mu W over 1.8 V. The harvested energy is enough to reach the communication range of a standard UHF RFID sensor tag up to 21 m.
- Development of a low-power solar energy harvester PMU integrated circuit optimized for indoor environments.(Servicio de Publicaciones. Universidad de Navarra., 2023-12-15) Lopez-Gasso, A. (Alberto); Berenguer-Pérez, R.J. (Roque José); Beriain, A. (Andoni)Wireless electronic devices face a common and important constraint: the limited lifespan of their batteries. The concept of quasi-perpetual electronic devices, particularly for tiny and low-power electronic systems, is progressively becoming attainable. En-ergy harvesting can be the part of the solution by improving, attenuating or even eliminating this limitation by extending its autonomy. The final goal is to convert them into a virtually perpetual system. Energy Harvesting can be defined as the collection and storage of ambi-ent energy from the surroundings, to later convert it into electrical energy and use it to power a small and low-power electronic devices. These devices are often. The energy harvesting technique is intended to be used in devices where it is impractical or inconvenient to use traditional battery or grid power sources. Moreover, it have recently received more attention due to its in-creasing use in the Internet of Things (IoT) and the appearing of Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN). This work describes an energy-efficient monolithic Power Management Unit (PMU) that includes a charge pump adapted to photovoltaic cells with the capability of charging a large supply capacitor and managing the stored energy efficiently to provide the required supply voltage and power to low energy consumption wireless sensor nodes such as RFID sensor tags. The proposed system starts-up self-sufficiently with a light source lumi-nosity equal to or higher than 245 lux, meaning a voltage input of 595 mV using only a 1.42 cm2 solar cell. The result energy harvester integrates an energy monitor that gives the ability to supply autonomous sensor nodes with discontinuous operation modes. The full PMU occupies an area of 1.073 mm2 using a standard 180 nm CMOS technology. The half-floating architecture of the integrated charge pump avoids losses of charging the top/button plate of the stray capacitors in each clock cycle. Measurements’ results on a fabricated IC exhibit an an output power of 13.9 µW with 70.2 percent of peak-to-peak efficiency at indoor light conditions (680lux) with an output voltage of 2V.
- A 21 m Operation Range RFID Tag for “Pick to Light” Applications with a Photovoltaic Harvester(MDPI, 2020) Del-Rio-Orduña, D. (David); Beriain, A. (Andoni); Berenguer-Pérez, R.J. (Roque José); Lopez-Gasso, A. (Alberto); Golpe, D. (Diego); Solar, H. (Hector); Astigarraga, A. (Aingeru)In this paper, a novel Radio-Frequency Identification (RFID) tag for “pick to light” applications is presented. The proposed tag architecture shows the implementation of a novel voltage limiter and a supply voltage (VDD) monitoring circuit to guarantee a correct operation between the tag and the reader for the “pick to light” application. The feasibility to power the tag with different photovoltaic cells is also analyzed, showing the influence of the illuminance level (lx), type of source light (fluorescent, LED or halogen) and type of photovoltaic cell (photodiode or solar cell) on the amount of harvested energy. Measurements show that the photodiodes present a power per unit package area for low illuminance levels (500 lx) of around 0.08 µW/mm2 , which is slightly higher than the measured one for a solar cell of 0.06 µW/mm2 . However, solar cells present a more compact design for the same absolute harvested power due to the large number of required photodiodes in parallel. Finally, an RFID tag prototype for “pick to light” applications is implemented, showing an operation range of 3.7 m in fully passive mode. This operation range can be significantly increased to 21 m when the tag is powered by a solar cell with an illuminance level as low as 100 lx and a halogen bulb as source light.