• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Information and Commucation Sciences Conference
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• 2011.10a
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• pp.425-428
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• 2011

This paper presents a micro-scale solar energy harvesting circuit with a simple MPPT control. Solar Energy is harvested using a small off-chip PV cell generating output voltages under 0.5V instead of an on-chip PV cell. A simple MPPT is implemented using a pilot PV cell and utilizing the relationship between the open-circuit voltage of a PV cell ($V_{OC}$) and its MPP voltage ($V_{MPP}$). With applying the MPPT control, the designed circuit delivers the MPP voltage to load even though the loads is heavy such that the load circuit can operate properly. The proposed circuit is designed in TSMC 0.18um CMOS process.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2013.02a
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• pp.694-694
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• 2013

With the growing need of more effective energy harvesting, solar energy has been sought as one of the prominent candidates among the eco-friendly methods. Although many types of solar cells have been developed, the electronic conversion efficiency is limited by the material's physical properties: solar cells can only harvest solar energy from limited range in solar energy spectrum. To overcome this physical limit, we approached by using the down conversion effect, transforming the high energy photons to low energy photons, to the range the designated solar cell can convert to electronic energy. In our study, we have fabricated GaAs single junction solar cells and applied CdSe quantum dots for down-conversion. We examine the effects of such application on the solar cell efficiancy, fill-factor, JSC, VOC, etc.

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics Engineers of Korea SC
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• v.48 no.2
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• pp.15-21
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• 2011

In this paper, an energy management circuit for solar energy harvesting system is designed in $0.35{\mu}m$ CMOS technology. The solar energy management system consists of an ISC(Integrated Solar Cell), a voltage booster, and an MPPT(Maximum Power Point Tracker) control unit. The ISC generates an open circuit voltage of 0.5V and a short circuit current of $15{\mu}A$. The voltage booster provides the following circuit with a supply voltage about 1.5V. The MPPT control unit turns on the pMOS switch to provide the load with power while the ISC operates at MPP. The SEMU(Solar Energy Management Unit) area is $360{\mu}m{\times}490{\mu}m$ including pads. The ISC area is $500{\mu}m{\times}2000{\mu}m$. Experimental results show that the designed SEMU performs proper MPPT control for solar energy harvested from the ISC. The measured MPP voltage range is about 370mV∼420mV.

• Ceramist
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• v.22 no.2
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• pp.122-132
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• 2019

Wearable electronic devices with batteries must be lightweight, flexible and highly durable. Most importantly, the battery should be able to self-generate to operate the devices without having to be too frequently charged externally. An eco-friendly energy harvesting technology from various sources, such as solar energy, electromagnetic energy and wind energy, has been developed for a self-charging flexible battery. Although the energy harvesting from such sources are often unstable according to the surrounding environment, the energy harvesting from body movements and vibrations has been less affected by the surrounding environment. In this regard, flexible piezoelectric modules are the most attractive solution for this issue, because they convert mechanical energy to electrical energy and harvest energy from the human body motions. Among the various flexible piezoelectric modules, piezoelectric nanofibers have advantages when used as an energy harvester in wearable devices, due to their simple manufacturing process with good applicability to polymers and ceramics. This review focused on diverse flexible piezoelectric nanofibers and discusses their applications as various energy harvesting systems.

• KSII Transactions on Internet and Information Systems (TIIS)
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• v.10 no.10
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• pp.4724-4747
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• 2016

To efficiently reduce on-grid energy consumption, the admission control algorithm in the hybrid energy powered cellular network (HybE-Net) with base stations (BSs) powered by on-grid energy and solar energy is studied. In HybE-Net, the fluctuation of solar energy harvesting and energy consumption may result in the imbalance of solar energy utilization among BSs, i.e., some BSs may be surplus in solar energy, while others may maintain operation with on-grid energy supply. Obviously, it makes solar energy not completely useable, and on-grid energy cannot be reduced at capacity. Thus, how to control user admission to improve solar energy utilization and to reduce on-grid energy consumption is a great challenge. Motivated by this, we first model the energy flow behavior by using stochastic queue model, and dynamic energy characteristics are analyzed mathematically. Then, fuzzy logic based admission control algorithm is proposed, which comprehensively considers admission judgment parameters, e.g., transmission rate, bandwidth, energy state of BSs. Moreover, the index of solar energy utilization balancing is proposed to improve the balance of energy utilization among different BSs in the proposed algorithm. Finally, simulation results demonstrate that the proposed algorithm performs excellently in improving solar energy utilization and reducing on-grid energy consumption of the HybE-Net.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Information and Commucation Sciences Conference
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• 2013.10a
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• pp.750-753
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• 2013

In respect of consuming energy, the optimization is the main objective in the solar energy harvesting sensor system (while battery-based sensor system aims at the minimization), due to the periodicity of solar energy. Aimed at the optimization of the network topology, we suggest 3-level transmission power control algorithm of which level is determined by the amount of residual energy on the rechargeable battery. Additionally, we experiment the effects of our scheme on network-wide performance such as the latency and the duty-cycle, and verify that our scheme shows the best performance in most of the metrics, compared to the schemes with fixed transmission power.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Heat Treatment
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• v.32 no.1
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• pp.29-35
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• 2019

The remedial junction is found in the network of single walled carbon nanotubes after the irradiation of protons not only for the better mechanical strength but also for the higher property of electrical conductivity. The irradiated proton formed a beam transferred sufficient energy to change the sp2 structure of atomic carbon as much as damage of crystalline formation, however it is shown the cross bonding while recovery of structure. This improved network in 2-D atomic chain of carbon is expected to use in a critical part in space energy harvesting system related with the solar radiation.

• Science of Emotion and Sensibility
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• v.25 no.4
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• pp.119-128
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• 2022

This study analyzes the effects of the number of angles and bends on resistance in a conductor-embroidered stitch circuit for efficient power transfer through a conductor of wearable energy harvesting to study changes in power lost through connection with actual solar panels. In this study, the angle of the conductive stitch circuit was designed in units of 30˚, from 30˚ to 180˚, and the resistance was measured using an analog Discovery 2 device. The measured resistance value was analyzed, and in the section of the angle where the resistance value rapidly changes, it was measured again and analyzed in units of 5˚. Following this, from the results of the analysis, the angle at which the tension was applied to the stitch converges was analyzed, and the resistance was measured again by varying the number of bends of the stitch at the given angle. The resistance decreases as the angle of the stitch decreases and the number of bends increases, and the conductor embroidery stitch can reduce the loss of power by 1.61 times relative to general embroidery. These results suggest that the stitching of embroidery has a significant effect on the power transfer in the transmission through the conductors of wearable energy harvesting. These results indicate the need for a follow-up study to develop a conductor circuit design technology that compares and analyzes various types of stitches, such as curved stitches, and the number of conductors, so that wearable energy harvesting can be more efficiently produced and stored.

• Journal of Power Electronics
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• v.12 no.6
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• pp.954-959
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• 2012

A hybrid switch that uses a microelectromechanical system (MEMS) switch as a gate driver of a MOSFET is applied to an energy harvesting system. The power management circuit adopting the hybrid switch provides ultralow leakage, self-referencing, and high current handling capability. Measurements show that solar energy harvester circuit utilizing the MEMS-MOSFET hybrid switch accumulates energy and charges a battery or drive a resistive load without any constant power supply and reference voltage. The leakage current during energy accumulation is less than 10 pA. The power management circuit adopting the proposed hybrid switch is believed to be an ideal solution to self-powered wireless sensor nodes in smart grid systems.

• KSII Transactions on Internet and Information Systems (TIIS)
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• v.14 no.4
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• pp.1419-1436
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• 2020

For an energy harvesting sensor network, when the network lifetime is not the only primary goal, maximizing the network performance under environmental energy harvesting becomes a more critical issue. However, clustering protocols that aim at providing maximum information throughput have not been thoroughly explored in Energy Harvesting Wireless Sensor Networks (EH-WSNs). In this paper, clustering protocols are studied for maximizing the data transmission in the whole network. Based on a long short-term memory (LSTM) energy predictor and node energy consumption and supplement models, an uneven clustering protocol is proposed where the cluster head selection and cluster size control are thoroughly designed for this purpose. Simulations and results verify that the proposed scheme can outperform some classic schemes by having more data packets received by the cluster heads (CHs) and the base station (BS) under these energy constraints. The outcomes of this paper also provide some insights for choosing clustering routing protocols in EH-WSNs, by exploiting the factors such as uneven clustering size, number of clusters, multiple CHs, multihop routing strategy, and energy supplementing period.