Efficiency comparison of Voltage Multiplier and boost converter topologies for Radio Frequency energy harvesting circuit using HSPICE

Converting the readily available energies from the environment into usable electrical energy is today's ongoing advancement in technology. Radio frequency (RF) signals, one of the readily available energies from the environment, are currently used to power low-power devices. Today, there are different topologies used in harvesting RF signals and the researchers want to compare the efficiencies of the two commonly used RF harvester topologies. In this study, modified Dickson voltage multiplier and boost converter are the RF harvester topologies that will be designed, compared, and analyzed. In comparing and determining which topology will have maximum efficiency, both topologies have an output set to 3 V with 1 mV peak-to-peak output ripple voltage and have three parameters to be varied during simulations. The three parameters are the input frequency, input voltage and the load resistance. T test was used in analyzing the gathered data to know if the efficiency of the voltage multiplier significantly differs from the efficiency of boost converter. Based from the results, the efficiency of the designed voltage multiplier was significantly higher from the efficiency of the designed boost converter. The designed voltage multiplier achieved a maximum efficiency of 18.5054 % operating at GSM900 with 0.32 Vac input and 3.0418 Vdc regulated output at 0.5 MΩ load.