Open Access
Energy harvesting approaches in IoT scenarios with very low ambient energy
(European Association for the Development of Renewable Energy, Environment and Power Quality (EA4EPQ), 2019) López Martín, Antonio; Algueta-Miguel, Jose M.; Matías Maestro, Ignacio; Institute of Smart Cities - ISC
The feasibility of multi-source energy harvesting in Internet of Things (IoT) scenarios with low and intermittent ambient energy is addressed. As a relevant case study, application to a smart cargo container system is analysed. The most relevant features of the main energy sources available in this target application are identified, and various transducers adapted to such sources are evaluated. Measurement results indicate that combined piezoelectric and thermoelectric generation inside cargo containers can significantly extend the battery lifetime of IoT end nodes embedded in such containers.
Open Access
Analog lock-in amplifier design using subsampling for accuracy enhancement in GMI sensor applications
(MDPI, 2023) Algueta-Miguel, Jose M.; Beato López, Juan Jesús; López Martín, Antonio; Ciencias; Zientziak; Institute of Smart Cities - ISC; Institute for Advanced Materials and Mathematics - INAMAT2; Universidad Pública de Navarra / Nafarroako Unibertsitate Publikoa, PJUPNA2005
A frequency downscaling technique for enhancing the accuracy of analog lock-in amplifier (LIA) architectures in giant magneto-impedance (GMI) sensor applications is presented in this paper. As a proof of concept, the proposed method is applied to two different LIA topologies using, respectively, analog and switching-based multiplication for phase-sensitive detection. Specifically, the operation frequency of both the input and the reference signals of the phase-sensitive detector (PSD) block of the LIA is reduced through a subsampling process using sample-and-hold (SH) circuits. A frequency downscaling from 200 kHz, which is the optimal operating frequency of the employed GMI sensor, to 1 kHz has been performed. In this way, the proposed technique exploits the inherent advantages of analog signal multiplication at low frequencies, while the principle of operation of the PSD remains unaltered. The circuits were assembled using discrete components, and the frequency downscaling proposal was experimentally validated by comparing the measurement accuracy with the equivalent conventional circuits. The experimental results revealed that the error in the signal magnitude measurements was reduced by a factor of 8 in the case of the analog multipliers and by a factor of 21 when a PSD based on switched multipliers was used. The error in-phase detection using a two-phase LIA was also reduced by more than 25%.
Open Access
Sensing in coin discriminators
(IEEE, 2007) Carlosena García, Alfonso; López Martín, Antonio; Arizti, Fernando; Martínez de Guereñu, Ane; Pina Insausti, José L.; García Sayés, Miguel; Ingeniería Eléctrica y Electrónica; Ingeniaritza Elektrikoa eta Elektronikoa
This paper describes the technologies used in coin discriminator devices, stressing the improvements and novel mechanisms introduced by the authors in the past few years as a result of the cooperation with one leading company in the vending sector. Emphasis is put on how low-cost sensors are used to characterize coins (or tokens) and discriminate them from their counterfeits.
Open Access
Energy-efficient amplifiers based on quasi-floating gate techniques
(MDPI, 2021) López Martín, Antonio; Garde Luque, María Pilar; Algueta-Miguel, Jose M.; Beloso Legarra, Javier; González Carvajal, Ramón; Ramírez-Angulo, Jaime; Ingeniaritza Elektrikoa, Elektronikoaren eta Telekomunikazio Ingeniaritzaren; Institute of Smart Cities - ISC; Ingeniería Eléctrica, Electrónica y de Comunicación
Energy efficiency is a key requirement in the design of amplifiers for modern wireless applications. The use of quasi-floating gate (QFG) transistors is a very convenient approach to achieve such energy efficiency. We illustrate different QFG circuit design techniques aimed to implement low-voltage energy-efficient class AB amplifiers. A new super class AB QFG amplifier is presented as a design example including some of the techniques described. The amplifier has been fabricated in a 130 nm CMOS test chip prototype. Measurement results confirm that low-voltage ultra low power amplifiers can be designed preserving at the same time excellent small-signal and large-signal performance.
Open Access
Smart charging station with photovoltaic and energy storage for supplying electric buses
(IEEE, 2022) Berrueta Irigoyen, Alberto; Astrain Escola, José Javier; Puy Pérez de Laborda, Guillermo; El Hamzaoui, Ismail; Ursúa Rubio, Alfredo; Sanchis Gúrpide, Pablo; Villadangos Alonso, Jesús; Falcone Lanas, Francisco; López Martín, Antonio; Matías Maestro, Ignacio; Institute of Smart Cities - ISC
A Smart Charging Station (SCS) has been installed in the Public University of Navarre, Spain, in the framework of the H2020 Smart City Lighthouse STARDUST project. The SCS consists of a high-power electric bus charging point (300 kW), a 100 kW photovoltaic system, a 84 kWh support energy storage system based on a second-life lithiumion battery, and a monitoring and control system that allows the safe storage and convenient access to operation data. This SCS operates as a Smart Grid, being able to provide the power peaks required by the electric bus charger, reducing and smoothing the power demanded from the distribution grid and increasing the renewable energy self-consumption rate. This contribution presents a novel monitoring and control system, which is a key tool to integrate this SCS in the data infrastructure of a Smart City, as well as an energy management system able to operate the SCS to achieve the above-mentioned technical requirements. The crucial role of the monitoring and control system and the energy management system becomes evident in this work.
Open Access
Pseudo-three-stage Miller op-amp with enhanced small-signal and large-signal performance
(IEEE, 2019) Paul, Anindita; Ramírez-Angulo, Jaime; López Martín, Antonio; González Carvajal, Ramón; Rocha-Pérez, José Miguel; Ingeniaritza Elektrikoa, Elektronikoaren eta Telekomunikazio Ingeniaritzaren; Institute of Smart Cities - ISC; Ingeniería Eléctrica, Electrónica y de Comunicación
A simple technique to implement highly power efficient class AB-AB Miller op-amps is presented in this paper. It uses a composite input stage with resistive local common mode feedback that provides class AB operation to the input stage and essentially enhances the op-amp's effective transconductance gain, the dc open-loop gain, the gain-bandwidth product, and slew rate with just moderate increase in power dissipation. The experimental results of op-amps in strong inversion and subthreshold fabricated in a 130-nm standard CMOS technology validate the proposed approach. The op-amp has 9 V·pF/μs·μW large-signal figure of merit (FOM) and 17 MHz · pF/μW small-signal FOM with 1.2-V supply voltage. In subthreshold, the op-amp has 10 V · pF/μs · μW large-signal FOM and 92 MHz · pF/μW small-signal FOM with 0.5-V supply voltage.
Open Access
Low-voltage 0.81mW, 1-32 CMOS VGA with 5% bandwidth variations and -38dB DC rejection
(IEEE, 2020) López Martín, Antonio; Rico-Aniles, Héctor Daniel; Ramírez-Angulo, Jaime; Rocha-Pérez, José Miguel; González Carvajal, Ramón; Institute of Smart Cities - ISC
A CMOS low-voltage amplifier with approximately constant bandwidth and DC rejection is introduced. The design is based on the cascade of a wide linear input range OTA, an op-amp and a servo-loop with extremely large time constants. It operates with +/-0:45V supplies and a power consumption of 0.81mW in 180nm technology. The bandwidth changes only from 9.08MHz to 9.54MHz over a gain range from 1 to 32, it has a 9.8Hz low cutoff frequency and a DC attenuation of 38dBs. DC floating voltage sources are used to keep the gates of all differential pairs at a constant value close to a supply rail in order to operate the amplifier circuit with minimum supply voltage. The proposed circuit has small and large signal figures of merit FOMSS=5380 (MHz*pF/mW) and FOMLS=0:0085((V/ns)*pF/mA) for a nominal gain A=32.
Open Access
Super class AB RFC OTA using non-linear current mirrors
(Institution of Engineering and Technology, 2018) Garde Luque, María Pilar; López Martín, Antonio; Carvajal, Ramón G.; Galán, J.A.; Ramírez-Angulo, Jaime; Institute of Smart Cities - ISC
An alternative approach to the design of super class AB recycling folded cascode operational transconductance amplifiers is proposed. Instead of using local common-mode feedback for boosting dynamic currents, simple current mirrors with input transistors entering triode region for large currents are employed. Measurement results from a 0.5 μm CMOS test chip validate the proposal.
Open Access
Distributed opportunistic wireless mapping system towards smart city service provision
(IEEE, 2021) Villadangos Alonso, Jesús; Falcone Lanas, Francisco; López Martín, Antonio; Astrain Escola, José Javier; Sanchis Gúrpide, Pablo; Matías Maestro, Ignacio; Estatistika, Informatika eta Matematika; Ingeniaritza Elektrikoa, Elektronikoaren eta Telekomunikazio Ingeniaritzaren; Institute of Smart Cities - ISC; Estadística, Informática y Matemáticas; Ingeniería Eléctrica, Electrónica y de Comunicación
The knowledge of wireless signal distribution within an urban scenario can provide useful information to users as well as to enhance connectivity and device operation or to perform municipal logistics based on crowd density and user mobility patterns. In this work, a distributed wireless mapping system, based on a combination of opportunistic nodes such as smartphones which map geolocated WiFi access point connection and received power levels, and a cloud-based information gathering architecture is described. The proposed system has been tested in the framework of the Smart City platform of the city of Pamplona, providing signal distribution heat maps, which can be used for multiple municipal services.
Open Access
Fault detection of planetary gears based on signal space constellations
(MDPI, 2022) Martincorena Arraiza, Maite; Cruz Blas, Carlos Aristóteles de la; López Martín, Antonio; Molina Vicuña, Cristian; Matías Maestro, Ignacio; Ingeniaritza Elektrikoa, Elektronikoaren eta Telekomunikazio Ingeniaritzaren; Institute of Smart Cities - ISC; Ingeniería Eléctrica, Electrónica y de Comunicación
A new method to process the vibration signal acquired by an accelerometer placed in a planetary gearbox housing is proposed, which is useful to detect potential faults. The method is based on the phenomenological model and consists of the projection of the healthy vibration signals onto an orthonormal basis. Low pass components representation and Gram–Schmidt’s method are conveniently used to obtain such a basis. Thus, the measured signals can be represented by a set of scalars that provide information on the gear state. If these scalars are within a predefined range, then the gear can be diagnosed as correct; in the opposite case, it will require further evaluation. The method is validated using measured vibration signals obtained from a laboratory test bench.