Journal of Power Electronics

The Korean Institute of Power Electronics (전력전자학회)
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Practical Implementation of Maximum Power Tracking Based Short-Current Pulse Method for Thermoelectric Generators Systems

  • Received : 2017.10.29
  • Accepted : 2018.02.13
  • Published : 2018.07.20
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Abstract

The applications of thermoelectric generators (TEGs) have received a lot of attention both in terms of harvesting waste thermal energy and the need for multi-levels of power. It is critical to track the optimum electrical operating point using DC to DC converters controlled by a pulse that is generated through a maximum power point tracking algorithm (MPPT). In this paper, the hardware implementation of a short-current pulse algorithm has been demonstrated under steady stated and transient conditions. In addition, the MPPT algorithm has been proposed, which is one of the most effective and applicable algorithms for obtaining the maximum power point of TEGs. During this study, the proposed prototype has been validated both analytically and experimentally. It has also demonstrated successful performance, which highlights the claimed advantages of the proposed MPPT solution.

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References

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