Abstract
This paper describes a novel compressive self-powering technique that significantly extends the powering and sensing range of our previously reported piezo-floating-gate (PFG) sensors for applications in mechanical impact monitoring. At the core of the proposed technique is a nonlinear impedance circuit that dynamically loads the output of a piezoelectric transducer in a manner such that the sensor can be self-powered at low-levels of mechanical strain and yet is able to sense and detect large variations in strain-levels. The compressive approach requires precise programming of event detection thresholds and requires precise nonvolatile event counting, both of which are achieved using variants of a linear floating-gate injector circuit. Measured results obtained from prototypes fabricated in a 0.5-μm standard CMOS process validate the proposed compressive powering and the proposed programming technique.
Original language | English |
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Article number | 6582686 |
Pages (from-to) | 2311-2320 |
Number of pages | 10 |
Journal | IEEE Transactions on Circuits and Systems I: Regular Papers |
Volume | 60 |
Issue number | 9 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - 2013 |
Keywords
- Compressive powering
- floating-gate transistor
- mechanical impact detection
- piezoelectricity
- self-powered sensors
- strain
- structural health monitoring