Design-Time Tool for Energy Harvesting Solutions

The chapter introduces a MATLAB-LTSpice based design tool for integrating energy harvesting solutions into industrial IoT applications. It addresses the growing interest in IoT and IIoT solutions for remote diagnostics, process monitoring, and digital twins. The tool targets the Harvest-Store-Use approach, which uses rechargeable batteries and energy harvesters to provide a seamless power supply. The tool simplifies the design process by evaluating different energy harvesting scenarios at the early design stages, reducing the need for prototype testing. It supports various energy sources like solar irradiance, thermal gradients, and mechanical vibrations, and provides qualitative and quantitative results about the feasibility and performance of chosen energy harvesting solutions. The tool's decision logic algorithm assigns weighted scores to different EH solutions based on environmental and electrical data, allowing designers to quickly identify the best trade-off solution. Example simulation results are provided to illustrate the tool's capabilities. Overall, the chapter highlights the tool's potential to minimize design efforts and costs while enhancing the reliability and sustainability of energy harvesting solutions in industrial applications.