POWER CONVERTER AND POWER COMBINER FOR POWER-LIMITED POWER SOURCES

摘要

This invention relates to a hysteretic input-regulating high-output impedance power converter for converting the energy output of power-limited power sources such as solar cells to provide output current at voltages useful to operate electronics or charge batteries. This invention also relates to a power combiner that combines the output of multiple power sources into a single output. The power combiner is comprised of multiple circuits, one for each power source. These circuits are either complete input-regulating high-output impedance power converter circuits or, when connected to shared elements, form complete input-regulating high-output impedance power converter circuits. The power combiner can be used to combine the power from power sources that are alike or different.