Design and Implementation of a Thermoelectric Energy Harvester with MPPT Algorithms and Supercapacitor

Sensor nodes currently are principally powered by batteries, however batteries life are finite. Energy harvesting aims to increase the lifetime of sensor nodes. This system takes advantage of environmental conditions in order to use or store the energy harvested by transducers, such as thermoelectric generators. In this paper, a thermoelectric energy harvesting system based in a Boost converter with four different maximum power point tracking (MPPT) algorithms that store energy in a supercapacitor is implemented. Perturb and Observe (PO), Incremental Conductance (INC), Open Circuit Voltage (OCV) and Short Circuit Current (SCC) algorithms were tested to improve the designed circuit. Finally, OCV algorithm resulted being the fastest to charge the supercapacitor.