Industry 4.0 is a term that describes the vision of a virtual and real fusion system that has revolutionized the plant. In a recent German article related to this concept, I discussed how the industrial revolution has so far become a combination of new data management and new energy dominance and use – and it is this energy harvesting that runs for Industry 4.0. Provides a constant source of power. Since best practices for successful energy harvesting are not well shared, limiting the success rate of these designs, I will share some of these best practices in this blog post. I am often asked a question, what is the trick of designing an optimal energy harvesting system. In this blog post, I will discuss the design of a "bear" system in energy harvesting design that is more important than designing a "slack" system. The secret of the energy harvesting system is to be very similar to the bear. The bear can: Know when winter is coming and be able to adapt to the climate change that comes with it. Can fish at a fast enough speed to cope with the arrival of winter. Significantly reduce the rate of metabolism (hibernation) when the environment requires it. When the external environment stimulates its senses, it wakes up very quickly from hibernation. The most common mistake in energy harvesting is like sloth, sloth: Unable to adapt to a changing environment (the limited nature of its natural habitat illustrates this). When survival is threatened, it is almost impossible to speed up the movement. The energy consumed cannot be adjusted according to changes in the surrounding environment, and it is always kept to a minimum. But how can we transform sloths and bears into embedded electronic systems? Although it may take a whole blog post to explain the problem clearly, what most designers should already know is that a solar cell can generate energy anywhere, and in the same square centimeter of photovoltaic activity area, the power generated is 0 (no light), 2.5 μW (weak light) up to a maximum of 10 mW (sunshine). A system similar to a bear will be able to capture all of this energy, and a system similar to a sloth will be optimized for worst-case power, say 1μW. Naturally, the sloth approach limits the chances of collecting ambient energy and is unable to adapt to new environmental conditions, limiting the advantages these systems can provide to users. You may ask, how can you really design a system that operates like a bear? One of the starting points is the TI Designs reference design for the Universal Energy Harvesting Adapter Module for Thermoelectric Generators (TEG). In this lowest power mode, this design operates at 60nA and is capable of accommodating 40μW to hundreds of milliwatts of energy with more than 80% efficiency. In addition, when the system is in hibernation mode, it can wake up at any time to cope with environmental changes. This performance is possible thanks to a unique combination of ultra-low power and energy harvesting TI devices: the TPL5100 programmable timer and the bq25570 power management integrated circuit (IC) plus the industry's lowest power microcontroller unit (MCU) ), MSP430FR5969 MCU, and the lowest power comparator, TLV3691. The TPL5100 generates the "heartbeat" of this reference design. The best feature of this timer is its ability to run at 30nA. In addition, the MSP430TM MCU can be woken up periodically for system-wide housekeeping. When I was helping to design this IC, I wanted to be able to generate an interrupt to an ultra-low-power MCU, such as the MSP430FR5969 MCU, or to disconnect the load. In this TI Designs reference design, I am demonstrating how to use it in the first way. To capture the energy in my surroundings, I chose the bq25570; this is a DC/DC boost converter that can run 90% of the input energy while running Dynamic Maximum Power Point Tracking (MPPT). Converted to electrical energy as low as 100μW, this device can also be powered down, with a power of only 1nW after power down. The brain of this system is the MSP430FR5969 MCU. In the lowest power mode (LPM4.5), the MCU maintains a general-purpose input/output (GPIO) function for asynchronous interrupts or directly powers the system's low-power functions with a current consumption of only 20nA. The "sensory stimulus" that wakes the bear from hibernation comes from the TLV3691, a comparator that runs at only 75nA and is designed to monitor the input voltage. Due to its low power consumption, the GPIO of the MSP430FR5969 MCU can power this comparator and turn it on and off as needed. Figure 2: Block diagram of this reference design using the BoosterPack form factor for rapid prototyping If you are planning to design a system that consumes very little power or is based on energy harvesting, you can take a look at the schematic, layout, and test data in this reference design. If you have any successful experiences, or design problems you have encountered in previous designs, please share them with us below. Make sure your energy harvesting system is like a bear, and make it highly adaptable and dominant, becoming the master of the entire ecosystem! Other resources Download schematics, test data, design files, and bill of materials for a common energy harvesting adapter module for a thermoelectric generator (TEG) TI Designs reference design. In this German article, learn about the reasons why Industry 4.0 will be driven by energy harvesting. If your energy harvesting system needs to be isolated from the main system, download the schematic from this TI Designs reference design (TIDA-00349). Shenzhen Happybate Trading Co.,LTD , https://www.happybateprojector.com