Investigation of novel thermoelectric sensor array configurations operating under non-uniform temperature distribution conditions for the measurement of maximum output power in an energy harvesting system

Abstract

This research work proposes a configuration study of thermoelectric module (TEM) sensor array operating under uniform and non-uniform temperature distribution (NUTD) conditions. The four different (10 × 10) TEM array configurations, which are electrically connected in series-parallel (SP), all-tied (AT), bridge-joint (BJ), and bee-hive (BH), are considered to evaluate its performance under six cases of NUTD conditions. The electrical characteristics of the various sensor array configurations has been analysed and tested under both temperature distribution conditions using MATLAB-Simulink. A comparison of results of the various configurations is carried out in terms of maximum output power, voltage and current corresponding to maximum power, utilization factor, losses, relative error, standard deviation, and root mean square error. The maximum output power obtained from various cases of NUTD conditions confirm that the performance of bridge-joint configuration is best than all other configurations in the field of thermoelectric energy harvesting systems.