• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers Conference
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• 2008.06a
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• pp.51-51
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• 2008

최근 센서, 전자기술의 발달은 소형 센서 기기의 구동에 필요한 파워를 줄여 주변의 진동이나 온도차등에서의 작은 에너지로도 센서 등의 소형 전자기기의 구동을 가능하게 했다. 이에 따라 전자기기의 구동에너지로써 에너지 하베스팅이 많은 관심을 받고 있다. 압전 효과를 이용하여 주변의 진동에너지를 전기에너지로 변화 시키는 압전에너지 하베스터는 온도차이나 태양광, 바람등과는 달리 날씨나 구동조건에 큰 영항을 받지 않는 장점과 그 크기가 비교적 소형이라는 장점이 있어 많은 연구가 진행되고 있다. 에너지 하베스터에서 생산된 에너지를 사용하기 위해서는 생산된 에너지를 저장장치에 저장해야 한다. 저장장치에 저장하기 위해서는 일정 이상의 전압과 많은 양의 전류가 있는 것이 효과적이다. 하지만 압전 세라믹의 출력 특성은 전압이 크고, 출력 전류가 작은 특성을 지지고 있어 충전 속도가 느리다는 문제점이 있다. 압전세라믹에서 발생되는 에너지는 세라믹의 두께와 세라믹의 전극면적에 비례하는데 각각 세라믹의 두께는 출력 전압에 영향을 주며, 세라믹의 전극면적은 발생하는 전하량에 영항을 준다. 이러한 압전체의 특징을 이용하여 본 연구에서는 압전체의 출력특성의 향상을 위하여 $10\times35mm^2$ 크기의 적층 세라믹을 제작하여 압전에너지 하베스터를 제작하였다. 적층 압전세라믹을 이용한 에너지 하베스터에서 3.5m/$s^2$ 24.6 ${\mu}m$의 진동에서 발생전압 2.14 V 에 발생전류 252 ${\mu}A$의 특성을 얻을 수 있었다.

• Journal of Power Electronics
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• v.16 no.3
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• pp.1226-1235
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• 2016

For wearable health monitoring systems, a fundamental problem is the limited space for storing energy, which can be translated into a short operational life. In this paper, a highly efficient active voltage doubling rectifier with a wide input range for micro-piezoelectric energy harvesting systems is proposed. To obtain a higher output voltage, the Dickson charge pump topology is chosen in this design. By replacing the passive diodes with unbalanced-biased comparator-controlled active counterparts, the proposed rectifier minimizes the voltage losses along the conduction path and solves the reverse leakage problem caused by conventional comparator-controlled active diodes. To improve the rectifier input voltage sensitivity and decrease the minimum operational input voltage, two low power common-gate comparators are introduced in the proposed design. To keep the comparator from oscillating, a positive feedback loop formed by the capacitor C is added to it. Based on the SMIC 0.18-μm standard CMOS process, the proposed rectifier is simulated and implemented. The area of the whole chip is 0.91×0.97 mm², while the rectifier core occupies only 13% of this area. The measured results show that the proposed rectifier can operate properly with input amplitudes ranging from 0.2 to 1.0V and with frequencies ranging from 20 to 3000 Hz. The proposed rectifier can achieve a 92.5% power conversion efficiency (PCE) with input amplitudes equal to 0.6 V at 200 Hz. The voltage conversion efficiency (VCE) is around 93% for input amplitudes greater than 0.3 V and load resistances larger than 20kΩ.

• Journal of the Korean Chemical Society
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• v.55 no.2
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• pp.279-282
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• 2011

Dye-sensitized solar cell (DSSC); an alternate energy source harvester has gained some attractive features such as high-energy conversion efficiency low production cost. Dye-sensitizer is a basic component of DSSC, which affecting the performance of the energy conversion efficiency. Current research has been focusing on development of high efficiency, metal-free dye-sensitizers, which would be more environmental friendly. We had successfully explored synthetic route to 6,6'-(1,2,5-oxadiazole-3,4-diyl)dipyridine-2,4-dicarboxylic acid (3A) which has been used as organic sensitizer. Investigation of light conversion efficiency (${\eta}$) of the compound uses standard measurement condition (one sun simulated irradiation, AM 1.5, 100 mW/$cm^2$) showed that it could reach 1.00% ($J_{SC}=2.63\;mAcm^{-2}$, $V_{OC}$=0.64 V and FF=0.59). Under the same conditions, the ruthenium complex (N719) gave the conversion efficiency as high as 4.02%($J_{SC}=10.50\;mAcm^{-2}$, $V_{OC}$=0.67V and FF=0.57).

• Journal of IKEEE
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• v.19 no.4
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• pp.573-582
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• 2015

This paper presents the design of dual mode boost converter for energy harvesting. The designed converter boosts low voltage from energy harvester through a startup circuit. When the voltage goes above predefined value, supplied voltage to startup circuit is blocked by voltage detector. Boost controller makes the boosted voltage into $V_{OUT}$. The proposed circuit consists of oscillator for charge pump, charge pump, pulse generator, voltage detector, and boost controller. The proposed converter is designed and fabricated using a $0.18{\mu}m$ CMOS process. The designed circuit shows that minimum input voltage is 600mV, output is 3V and startup time is 20ms. The boost converter achieves 47% efficiency at a load current of 3mA.

• The Journal of the Korea institute of electronic communication sciences
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• v.13 no.5
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• pp.1093-1100
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• 2018

Fast progress in miniaturization and reducing power consumption of semiconductors for wearable devices makes it possible to develop extremely small wearable systems for various application services. This results recent wearable applications to be powered from extremely low-power energy harvesters based on solar, piezo, and TENG sources. In most cases, the harvesters generate power in non-linear manner. Therefore, we implemented and experimented the device platforms to utilize natural frequency of around 3Hz. We also designed two-stage power storages and high efficiency conversion platform to consider such non-linear power harvesting sources. The experiment showed power generation of about 4.67mW/min from these non-linear sources with provision of stable energy storages.

• Journal of Biosystems Engineering
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• v.35 no.6
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• pp.367-372
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• 2010

Consumption of pepper, a major spice vegetable used for seasoning Kimchi, continues to increase, but cultivation is in decline due to shortage of rural labor in Korea. The 39.2% of total labor requirement for conventional pepper cultivation was available for harvesting work. Therefore conventional manual harvesting should be turned to mechanical harvesting for labor-saving, cost-reducing and easy work. Surveys on conventional pepper cultivation patterns, labor requirements for various pepper cultivation works, and farmers' opinions on the mechanization of pepper harvesting were conducted to obtain basic informations. The labor requirement for pepper harvesting was 954 h/ha out of a total labor requirement of 2,436 h/ha for pepper cultivation. Harvesting was the hardest work, and hiring workmen for harvesting was also difficult. Farmers preferred to develop a small-scale pepper harvester using agricultural tractor or cultivar. Most farmer agreed to change cultivation pattern for mechanization of pepper harvesting, but hesitated to adopt new one-time-harvesting pepper varieties.

• Journal of Biosystems Engineering
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• v.41 no.4
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• pp.408-417
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• 2016

Purpose: Yield monitoring systems are an essential component of precision agriculture. They indicate the spatial variability of crop yield in fields, and have become an important factor in modern harvesters. The objective of this paper was to review research trends related to yield monitoring sensors for grain crops. Methods: The literature was reviewed for research on the major sensing components of grain yield monitoring systems. These major components included grain flow sensors, moisture content sensors, and cutting width sensors. Sensors were classified by sensing principle and type, and their performance was also reviewed. Results: The main targeted harvesting grain crops were rice, wheat, corn, barley, and grain sorghum. Grain flow sensors were classified into mass flow and volume flow methods. Mass flow sensors were mounted primarily at the clean grain elevator head or under the grain tank, and volume flow sensors were mounted at the head or in the middle of the elevator. Mass flow methods used weighing, force impact, and radiometric approaches, some of which resulted in measurement error levels lower than 5% ($R^2=0.99$). Volume flow methods included paddle wheel type and optical type, and in the best cases produced error levels lower than 3%. Grain moisture content sensing was in many cases achieved using capacitive modules. In some cases, errors were lower than 1%. Cutting width was measured by ultrasonic distance sensors mounted at both sides of the header dividers, and the errors were in some cases lower than 5%. Conclusions: The design and fabrication of an integrated yield monitoring system for a target crop would be affected by the selection of a sensing approach, as well as the layout and mounting of the sensors. For accurate estimation of yield, signal processing and correction measures should be also implemented.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers
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• v.24 no.6
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• pp.515-518
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• 2011

In this work, we designed and fabricated a multilayer thin film Pb(Zr,Ti)$O_3$ cantilever with a Si proof mass for low frequency vibration energy harvesting applications. A mathematical model of a mu lti-layer composite beam was derived and applied in a parametric analysis of the piezoelectric cantilever. Finally, the dimensions of the cantilever were determined for the resonant frequency of the cantilever. W e fabricated a device with beam dimensions of about 4,930 ${\mu}M$ ${\times}$ 450 ${\mu}M$ ${\times}$ 12 ${\mu}M$, and an integrated Si proof mass with dimensions of about 1,410 ${\mu}M$ ${\times}$ 450 ${\mu}M$ ${\times}$ 450 ${\mu}M$. The resonant frequency, maximum peak voltage, and highest average power of the cantilever device were 84.5 Hz, 88 mV, and 0.166 ${\mu}Wat$ 1.0 g and 23.7 ${\Omega}$, respectively. The dimensions of the cantilever were determined for the resonance frequency of the cantilever.

• Journal of the Korea Society of Computer and Information
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• v.26 no.11
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• pp.11-19
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• 2021

In this paper, we propose a prototype platform combined with the power management system using, as an auxiliary power storage device, a supercapacitor that can be fast charged and discharged with high power efficiency as well as semi-permanent charge and discharge cycle life. For the proposed platform, we designed a technique which is capable of detecting the state of power cutoff or resumption of power supplied from the solar panel in accordance with physical environment changes through an interrupt attached to the micro-controller was developed. To prevent data loss in a computing environment in which continuous power supply is not guaranteed, we implemented a low-level system software in the micro-controller to transfer program context and data in volatile memory to nonvolatile memory when power supply is cut off. Experimental results shows that supercapacitors effectively supply temporary power as auxiliary power storage devices. Various benchmarks also confirm that power state detection and transfer of program context and data from volatile memory to nonvolatile memory have low overhead.

• Journal of Biosystems Engineering
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• v.43 no.4
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• pp.296-302
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• 2018

Purpose: The aim of this study was to determine appropriate threshing and selection conditions for sorghum harvesting using a rice combine-harvester. Methods: Sorghum harvesting performance was tested using an actual rice combine. Through this test, the grain loss rate and the composition of crops according to the engine and fan speeds of the combine were investigated. Furthermore, the optimal threshing and selection conditions were determined by carrying out a harvest test based on the opening size factor of the concave in a test field. Results: The grain loss rate for the sorghum using a concave ($18{\times}18mm$) of the rice combine was the lowest at 0.1% at a chaffer angle of $40^{\circ}$, engine speed of 2000 rpm, and fan speed of 20 m/s, but the sorting sieve clogged frequently. Furthermore, as the engine speed and fan speed increased, the grain loss rate also increased. The sorghum harvesting test results of the combine according to the concave opening size showed that the grain loss rate was 0.5% at a driving speed of 0.5 m/s, with a concave opening diameter of 13 mm, a chaffer angle of $40^{\circ}$, a concave sieve oscillation frequency of 4.8 Hz, a fan speed of 20 m/s, and an engine speed of 2000 rpm. Conclusions: Findings showed that sorghum could be harvested using a head feeding rice combine.