Low-Voltage Direct AC-DC Boost Converter for Microgenerator Based Energy Harvesting

The conventional power electronic converters used in the microgenerator based energy harvesting applications have two stages: a diode bridge rectifier and a dc-dc conveter. But it is less efficient and cant be used for electromagnetic microgenerators, as the diode bridge rectification is not normally feasible due to extreme low output voltage of the microgenerators. In this paper a direct ac-dc power electronic converter topology is proposed for efficient and maximum energy harvesting from low voltage microgenerators. The single stage ac-to-dc power conversion is achieved by utilizing the bidirectional conduction capability of MOSFETs. A suitable startup circuit,auxiliary dc supply circuit and a control circuit is proposed for the implementation of the converter.The proposed topology is simulated using LTspice and the results are presented to verify the operation of the converter and proposed auxilliary circuit.