A Multi-Channel Test System to evaluate Energy Harvesting Circuits for IoNT

Abstract

Energy harvesting captures, converts, and man-ages small ambient energy sources, such as thermal, solar, or mechanica, into usable electricity for low-power electronics, notably IoT devices and sensors, reducing battery dependency and maintenance in remote locations. Trees, for example, exhibit a thermal gradient between their internal and external trunk sections that can be converted into electricity, underpinning the development of smart trees powered directly by this harvested energy. However, as this voltage stems from minute temperature differences, it is inherently low and unstable relative to sensor or microcontroller requirements. Thus, a power conditioning circuit is essential to boost and stabilize it; here, the LTC3108 converter is employed. Nevertheless, analyzing this behavior and developing a comprehensive circuit requires simultaneous monitoring of all measurements, which conventional oscilloscopes cannot provide. To address this, the present work proposes a low-cost, multi-channel test system implemented with LabVIEW and the DAQ USB-1608-GX.