This article introduces the energy harvesting technology for wireless communication instrumentation, monitoring, and control applications. By collecting environmental energy sources such as mechanical vibration, temperature differential, and incident light, the devices can operate continuously without grid connection and with minimal maintenance. Linear Technology offers power management solutions to address the challenges of harvesting ambient low energy sources, including LTC3588 for vibration sources, LTC3108/LTC3109 for thermal sources, and now LTC3105 for photovoltaic energy harvesting applications.
The document introduces the LTC3105, a power management IC designed specifically for photovoltaic (PV) energy harvesting. It addresses the challenge of generating useful voltage rails from a single PV cell under load, which typically produces very low voltages. The LTC3105 features an ultralow 250mV start-up voltage and programmable maximum power point control to extract optimal power.
The device enables autonomous remote sensor nodes, data collection systems, and other applications that require grid independence.
It is designed to generate typical voltage rails ranging from 1.8V to 5V.
The device features an ultralow start-up voltage of 250mV.