Solar/wind hybrid energy harvesting for supercapacitor-based embedded systems
For autonomous medium power (1–10 W) field systems deployed in off-grid applications without established power infrastructure, two system design criteria are crucially important: i) continuous availability of power, ii) robust and low-maintenance operation. In this paper, we provide circuit and system designs for energy harvesters that address both issues by utilizing supercapacitors as their energy buffer and hybrid solar and wind power sources for their power supply. By utilizing the complimentary nature of solar and wind power sources, the necessity for large supercapacitor buffers is eliminated. Although a rich body of solar-only designs exist in the literature, in our knowledge, this is the first paper that demonstrates a hybrid harvester design for the medium power range. We experimentally demonstrate the functionality of our harvester designs.