Reconfiguration of Sustainable Thermoelectric Generation Using Wireless Sensor Network

An adaptive reconfiguration controller is proposed to improve the power performance of thermoelectric module (TEM) arrays when the heat source temperature profile is not uniform and/or a portion of the TEMs in the system is degraded. Distributed control algorithms are also implemented by using wireless sensor networks (WSNs), where remotely deployed temperature and voltage sensors as well as latching relays can be organized as a whole to intelligently identify and execute the optimal interconnection of TEM strings. A reconfigurable TEM array with a WSN controller and a maximum power point tracking load is presented, and experimental results demonstrate that a significant amount of power can be recovered through the proposed reconfiguration.