Dual-Input Cascaded DC-DC Converter for Hydromechanical Energy Harvesting in a Hydroponic System

In a hydroponic system, water is used as a growing medium. Water will circulate nutrients throughout the plant on the grow tray. To maintain the nutritional balance of the whole plant, water circulation should be done continuously for 24 hours. This water will flow back to the reservoir by using the force of gravity. Therefore, at a certain height, this force will produce potential energy and influence the water flow rate. Despite its small size, this energy can be harvested and used to power a low-power load, such as a wireless sensor node (WSN) in a hydroponic monitoring system. To harvest this energy, a small electrical energy conversion from more than one micro-water turbine requires a well-designed converter. Therefore, in this research, a dual-input cascade DC-DC boost converter is designed to process the power from the turbine. The topology of the converter uses a basic-boost converter circuit, but it is combined with a parallel-series connection. The experiment results show that the converter works as expected.