An Efficient and Fast Li-Ion Battery Charging System Using Energy Harvesting or Conventional Sources

This paper presents a multi-input battery charging system that is capable of increasing the charging efficiency of lithium-ion (Li-ion) batteries. The proposed battery charging system consists of three main building blocks: a pulse charger, a step-down dc-dc converter, and a power path controller. The pulse charger allows charging via a wall outlet or an energy harvesting system. It implements charge techniques that increase the battery charge efficiency of a Li-ion battery. The power path controller (PPC) functions as a power monitor and selects the optimal path for charging either via an energy harvesting system or an ac adapter. The step-down dc-dc converter provides an initial supply voltage to start up the energy harvesting system. The integrated circuit design is implemented on a CMOS 0.18 μm technology process. Experimental results verify that the proposed pulse charger reduces the charging time of 100 mAh and 45 mAh Li-ion batteries respectively by 37.35% and 15.56% and improves the charge efficiency by 3.15% and 3.27% when compared to the benchmark constant current-constant voltage charging technique. The step-down dc-dc converter has a maximum efficiency of 90% and the operation of the PPC is also verified by charging the battery via a thermoelectric energy harvesting system.