Power harvesting
AssigneeIntel Corporation
InventorsVaibhav Vaidya, Suhwan Kim
Life of this patent
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Abstract
Techniques for harvesting electrical energy from a plurality of harvesters is disclosed. An example energy harvesting system includes a plurality of harvesters and a signal conditioning circuit selectively coupled to an output of each of the plurality of harvesters. The system also includes an energy storage element coupled to the output of the signal conditioning circuit to be charged by the plurality of harvesters through the signal conditioning circuit. The system also includes a controller to discharge a selected harvester to the signal conditioning circuit when an output of the selected harvester triggers a charge collection.
Claims25
An energy harvesting system, comprising:
- a plurality of harvesters
- a signal conditioning circuit selectively coupled to an output of each of the plurality of harvesters;
- an energy storage element coupled to an output of the signal conditioning circuit and to be charged by the plurality of harvesters through the signal conditioning circuit;
- and
- a controller to discharge a selected harvester of the plurality of harvesters to the signal conditioning circuit when an output of the selected harvester triggers a charge collection.
A method of charging a battery, comprising:
- detecting a voltage generated by each harvester in a plurality of harvesters;
- detecting a trigger condition for a selected harvester of the plurality of harvesters based on the charge detected for the selected harvester;
- discharging the selected harvester to a signal conditioning circuit in response to the trigger condition;
- and
- discharging the signal conditioning circuit to the battery.
An energy harvesting circuit comprising:
- an plurality of inputs to receive electrical energy from a plurality of harvesters
- a signal conditioning circuit to store energy received from the plurality of harvesters before transferring the stored energy to a battery;
- a plurality of switches to selectively couple each of the plurality of harvesters to the signal conditioning circuit;
- and
- a controller to discharge a selected harvester of the plurality of harvesters to the signal conditioning circuit when a voltage of the selected harvester triggers a charge collection.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.