Towards an Energy-Efficient Inductively-Powered Ultra-High Frequency Pulsed Neurostimulator

Electrical stimulation has emerged as a promising therapeutic modality for the treatment of various neurological disorders such as Parkinson's disease, chronic pain, epilepsy, and depression. In addition, recent studies have provided evidence supporting the effectiveness of electrical stimulation as a treatment option for patients with chronic...

Design of Balancing Converter for Bipolar DC Grids Using Series Connected MOSFET Switches

Global electricity usage has been increasing exponentially over the last 40 years and with the current pace of population and economic growth, the same trend will continue in the coming years. However, the current electricity generation is predominantly fossil fuels based, which makes the overall process unsustainable and polluting, and is...

Energy Harvesting PMIC Design for an Extended Power-Range

This work proposes an energy harvesting DC-DC converter that is able to efficiently process a wide input power range from 25 mW up to 250 mW, to charge a storage device used in Internet-of-Things (IoT) applications. An interleaved boost-converter topology with two inductors is used to divide the high currents over the two branches, in order to...

A PV-assisted 10-mV Startup Boost Converter for Thermoelectric Energy Harvesting

This paper presents a boost converter for thermo-electric energy harvesting with photovoltaic (PV)-assisted startup. The converter employs a new two-phase startup architecture and the PV cell is used in the first phase to provide an initial high voltage for startup. This high voltage drives the boost converter to charge a startup capacitor,...

Battery Management System for the Wireless Powerlizer

To enable the portable use of electronic devices, (rechargeable) batteries need to be used. These batteries require a battery management system in order for them to operate safely and efficiently. This thesis describes such a system for the Wireless Powerlizer: a power bank with wireless charging capabilities and an integrated sterilizer using...

UV-C Sterilizer for the Wireless Powerlizer

The effectiveness of ultraviolet (UV) irradiation for disinfection has been well-known for more than a century. Recent advances in light­-emitting diode (LED) technology have brought UV LEDs to the consumer market. These offer many advantages over traditional gas­-discharge lamps, allowing UV radiation to be generated with higher reliability in...

Nonlinear control of electronic converters: Fast and optimal control using sampling-driven nonlinear MPC

This thesis considers the design of the sampling-driven nonlinear model predictive controller (SD-NMPC) for power electronic converters. Most MPC schemes that are used nowadays lack in the application for systems with high sampling frequencies because of their high computational time, especially when the system is nonlinear. This is, for example...

Study of Back-end DC/DC Converter for 3.7 kW Wireless Charging System according to SAE J2954

In a wireless charging system, a back-end DC/DC converter can be used after the coil rectification stage to match the battery charging requirements and to optimize the resonant converter operation. In this paper, a synchronous boost converter is selected according to suggested coil parameters from SAE J2954 standards on a WPT1 3.7 kW power class...

SoftGlove: Finger Force Feedback

Virtual reality gear is in the early stages of public use. A recent development is the use of haptic feedback gloves to improve immersion. This report describes some of the challenges in this field. The finger force feedback subsystem design of the SoftGlove is discussed including all methods used and measurements done to accomplish an optimal...

Design and comparison of a 10-kW interleaved boost converter for PV application using Si and SiC devices

Grid-connected photovoltaic (PV) inverters have a dc/dc converter connected to the PV for executing the maximum power point tracking. The design of an interleaved boost converter (IBC) with three switching legs for a 10-kW PV inverter is presented in this paper. This paper shows how the use of silicon carbide (SiC) switches and powdered iron...

Analysis and Design of MHz-range Wireless Power Transfer Systems for Implantable Devices

Wearable and implantable devices are becoming more and more common as time goes by and one of the major bottlenecks in their development is the power delivery. In order to tackle this problem, energy harvesting arises an option to bring these devices one step closer to complete autonomy. Among the available mechanisms for harvesting, near-field...

Maximum Power Point Tracking Topology, sensor and switch design

The Nuna 6 is a solar racing vehicle that solely relies on solar energy from the sun. Every year, the team seeks ways to improve the performance of their car. One way to improve the performance is to maximize the power output of the solar panels on top of the car. Maximizing the power output can be done with a 'Maximum Power Point Tracker'. The...