Power Supply and Control Unit for Actively Heated Protective Clothing with Photovoltaic Energy Harvesting

Bartosz Pękosławski, Paweł Marciniak, Łukasz Starzak, Adam Stawiński and Grażyna Bartkowiak
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Bartosz Pękosławski: Department of Microelectronics and Computer Science, Lodz University of Technology, 93-005 Lodz, Poland
Paweł Marciniak: Department of Microelectronics and Computer Science, Lodz University of Technology, 93-005 Lodz, Poland
Łukasz Starzak: Department of Microelectronics and Computer Science, Lodz University of Technology, 93-005 Lodz, Poland
Adam Stawiński: Department of Microelectronics and Computer Science, Lodz University of Technology, 93-005 Lodz, Poland
Grażyna Bartkowiak: Department of Personal Protective Equipment, Central Institute for Labour Protection—National Research Institute, 90-133 Lodz, Poland

Energies, 2022, vol. 15, issue 15, 1-25

Abstract: An active heating system has been developed for application in smart clothing for mountain rescuers. It uses a set of sensors and is aimed at gathering necessary data for the elaboration and testing of an automatic control algorithm. The system is powered by a lithium-ion battery pack, which can be additionally charged from flexible PV modules. The article presents an estimation of this system’s power supply requirements and its energy budget. Since the system’s maximum operation time strongly depends on the efficiency of its main power converter, the design of the latter was based on a model enabling power loss estimation in its particular components. Characteristics ultimately measured on a prototype showed a high agreement with simulations. Furthermore, five different arrangements of PV modules were studied in order to find the most effective one. The system was tested in real conditions for the three most promising PV module configurations.

Keywords: wearable electronics; switch-mode power converter; power loss model; power conversion efficiency; Li-ion battery sizing; resistive heating pad; flexible photovoltaic modules (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
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