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Energy Harvesting Wireless Sensor Network Edge Device Simulation Tool

Authors:
Cian O'Shea
Ross O'Halloran
Peter Haigh
Mike Hayes

Keywords: Keywords – Wireless Sensor Network; Low-power sensor network; Internet of Things (IoT); Energy Harvester; simulation tool

Abstract:
Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN) are becoming widely adopted in many industries including health care, building energy management and conditional monitoring. As the scale of low-power sensor network deployments increases, the cost and complexity of battery replacement and disposal have become more significant and in time may become a barrier to adoption. Harvesting ambient energies provides a pathway to reducing dependence on batteries and for many application scenarios, may lead to autonomously powered sensors. This work describes a simulation tool that enables the user to predict the battery life of a wireless sensor that utilizes energy harvesting to supplement the battery power. To create this simulator, all aspects of a typical WSN edge device (node) were modelled including sensors, transceiver and microcontroller as well as the energy source components (batteries, solar (PV) cells, Thermoelectric Generators (TEG), supercapacitors and DC/DC converters). The tool allows the user to plug and play different pre-characterized devices as well as add user defined devices. The goal of this simulation tool is to provide a WSN installer with a methodology to deploy systems with optimum battery lifetime by scaling battery and energy harvesting component sizes appropriately for a given scenario. It also allows a component designer to examine trade-offs in system level performance versus device specifications for optimum battery lifetime.

Pages: 1 to 10

Copyright: Copyright (c) IARIA, 2020

Publication date: November 21, 2020

Published in: conference

ISSN: 2308-4405

ISBN: 978-1-61208-819-8

Location: Valencia, Spain

Dates: from November 21, 2020 to November 25, 2020