Integration of a Planar Thick-Film CuNi–Cu-Based Thermoelectric Microgenerator with an RFID Tag

This paper presents the integration of a planar thick-film thermoelectric microgenerator based on CuNi–Cu materials with an HF RFID tag STM M24LR64E-R. The developed microgenerator consisted of 20 thermocouples connected in series and was characterized by a total internal resistance of 7.11 Ω. To match the energy parameters of both systems, a low-power LTC3108 DC–DC converter was used, allowing the increase in the voltage generated by the microgenerator from 80 mV to 2.35 V. The output power obtained from the converter was 29.3 µW, which proved sufficient to power the RFID tag. In idle mode, the power consumption of the tag was approximately 17 µW, while during the communication process it increased to 42 µW for approximately 1 ms. Subsequently, for about 25 ms, the energy demand of the system remained below the power delivered by the converter. The energy balance analysis performed demonstrated the possibility of correctly powering the tag throughout the entire communication cycle. The results obtained indicate that the use of a thermoelectric microgenerator as a power source for an RFID tag may contribute to reducing the system response time by eliminating the need for wake-up procedures, as well as potentially increasing the effective communication range.