Performance testing of a low power consumption wireless sensor communication system integrated with an energy harvesting power source

This paper presents the performance testing results of a wireless sensor communication system with low power consumption integrated with a vibration energy harvesting power source. The experiments focus on the system’s capability to perform continuous monitoring and to wirelessly transmit the data acquired from the sensors to a user base station, completely battery-free. Energy harvesting technologies together with system design optimisation for power consumption minimisation ensure the system’s energy autonomous capability demonstrated in this paper by presenting the promising testing results achieved following its integration with Structural Health Monitoring (SHM) and Body Area Network (BAN) applications

Flexible Integration of Alternative Energy Sources for Autonomous Sensing

Recent developments in energy harvesting and autonomous sensing mean that it is now possible to power sensors solely from energy harvested from the environment. Clearly this is dependent on sufficient environmental energy being present. The range of feasible environments for operation can be extended by combining multiple energy sources on a sensor node. The effective monitoring of their energy resources is also important to deliver sustained and effective operation. This paper outlines the issues concerned with combining and managing multiple energy sources on sensor nodes. This problem is approached from both a hardware and embedded software viewpoint. A complete system is described in which energy is harvested from both light and vibration, stored in a common energy store, and interrogated and managed by the node

Wearable flexible lightweight modular RFID tag with integrated energy harvester

A novel wearable radio frequency identification (RFID) tag with sensing, processing, and decision-taking capability is presented for operation in the 2.45-GHz RFID superhigh frequency (SHF) band. The tag is powered by an integrated light harvester, with a flexible battery serving as an energy buffer. The proposed active tag features excellent wearability, very high read range, enhanced functionality, flexible interfacing with diverse low-power sensors, and extended system autonomy through an innovative holistic microwave system design paradigm that takes antenna design into consideration from the very early stages. Specifically, a dedicated textile shorted circular patch antenna with monopolar radiation pattern is designed and optimized for highly efficient and stable operation within the frequency band of operation. In this process, the textile antenna's functionality is augmented by reusing its surface as an integration platform for light-energy-harvesting, sensing, processing, and transceiver hardware, without sacrificing antenna performance or the wearer's comfort. The RFID tag is validated by measuring its stand-alone and on-body characteristics in free-space conditions. Moreover, measurements in a real-world scenario demonstrate an indoor read range up to 23 m in nonline-of-sight indoor propagation conditions, enabling interrogation by a reader situated in another room. In addition, the RFID platform only consumes 168.3 mu W, when sensing and processing are performed every 60 s

Vibration-powered sensing system for engine condition monitoring

Condition monitoring is becoming an established technique for managing the maintenance of machinery in transport applications. Vibration energy harvesting allows wireless systems to be powered without batteries, but most traditional generators have been designed to operate at fixed frequencies. The variety of engine speeds (and hence vibration frequencies) in transport applications therefore means that these are not usable. This paper describes the application-driven specification, design and implementation of a novel vibration-powered sensing system for condition monitoring of engines. This demonstrates that, through careful holistic design of the entire system, condition monitoring systems can be powered solely from machine vibration, managing their energy resources and transmitting sensed data wirelessly

Fast design space exploration of vibration-based energy harvesting wireless sensors

An energy-harvester-powered wireless sensor node is a complicated system with many design parameters. To investigate the various trade-offs among these parameters, it is desirable to explore the multi-dimensional design space quickly. However, due to the large number of parameters and costly simulation CPU times, it is often difficult or even impossible to explore the design space via simulation. This paper presents a response surface model (RSM) based technique for fast design space exploration of a complete wireless sensor node powered by a tunable energy harvester. As a proof of concept, a software toolkit has been developed which implements the proposed design flow and incorporates either real data or parametrized models of the vibration source, the energy harvester, tuning controller and wireless sensor node. Several test scenarios are considered, which illustrate how the proposed approach permits the designer to adjust a wide range of system parameters and evaluate the effect almost instantly but still with high accuracy. In the developed toolkit, the estimated CPU time of one RSM estimation is 25s and the average RSM estimation error is less than 16.5

RF Energy Harvesting Techniques for Battery-less Wireless Sensing, Industry 4.0 and Internet of Things: A Review

As the Internet of Things (IoT) continues to expand, the demand for the use of energy-efficient circuits and battery-less devices has grown rapidly. Battery-less operation, zero maintenance and sustainability are the desired features of IoT devices in fifth generation (5G) networks and green Industry 4.0 wireless systems. The integration of energy harvesting systems, IoT devices and 5G networks has the potential impact to digitalize and revolutionize various industries such as Industry 4.0, agriculture, food, and healthcare, by enabling real-time data collection and analysis, mitigating maintenance costs, and improving efficiency. Energy harvesting plays a crucial role in envisioning a low-carbon Net Zero future and holds significant political importance. This survey aims at providing a comprehensive review on various energy harvesting techniques including radio frequency (RF), multi-source hybrid and energy harvesting using additive manufacturing technologies. However, special emphasis is given to RF-based energy harvesting methodologies tailored for battery-free wireless sensing, and powering autonomous low-power electronic circuits and IoT devices. The key design challenges and applications of energy harvesting techniques, as well as the future perspective of System on Chip (SoC) implementation, data digitization in Industry 4.0, next-generation IoT devices, and 5G communications are discussed

An Energy Driven Architecture for Wireless Sensor Networks

Most wireless sensor networks operate with very limited energy sources-their batteries, and hence their usefulness in real life applications is severely constrained. The challenging issues are how to optimize the use of their energy or to harvest their own energy in order to lengthen their lives for wider classes of application. Tackling these important issues requires a robust architecture that takes into account the energy consumption level of functional constituents and their interdependency. Without such architecture, it would be difficult to formulate and optimize the overall energy consumption of a wireless sensor network. Unlike most current researches that focus on a single energy constituent of WSNs independent from and regardless of other constituents, this paper presents an Energy Driven Architecture (EDA) as a new architecture and indicates a novel approach for minimising the total energy consumption of a WS

A critical analysis of research potential, challenges and future directives in industrial wireless sensor networks

In recent years, Industrial Wireless Sensor Networks (IWSNs) have emerged as an important research theme with applications spanning a wide range of industries including automation, monitoring, process control, feedback systems and automotive. Wide scope of IWSNs applications ranging from small production units, large oil and gas industries to nuclear fission control, enables a fast-paced research in this field. Though IWSNs offer advantages of low cost, flexibility, scalability, self-healing, easy deployment and reformation, yet they pose certain limitations on available potential and introduce challenges on multiple fronts due to their susceptibility to highly complex and uncertain industrial environments. In this paper a detailed discussion on design objectives, challenges and solutions, for IWSNs, are presented. A careful evaluation of industrial systems, deadlines and possible hazards in industrial atmosphere are discussed. The paper also presents a thorough review of the existing standards and industrial protocols and gives a critical evaluation of potential of these standards and protocols along with a detailed discussion on available hardware platforms, specific industrial energy harvesting techniques and their capabilities. The paper lists main service providers for IWSNs solutions and gives insight of future trends and research gaps in the field of IWSNs

Wireless sensor network for helicopter rotor blade vibration monitoring: Requirements definition and technological aspects

The main rotor accounts for the largest vibration source for a helicopter fuselage and its components. However, accurate blade monitoring has been limited due to the practical restrictions on instrumenting rotating blades. The use of Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) for real time vibration monitoring promises to deliver a significant contribution to rotor performance monitoring and blade damage identification. This paper discusses the main technological challenges for wireless sensor networks for vibration monitoring on helicopter rotor blades. The first part introduces the context of vibration monitoring on helicopters. Secondly, an overview of the main failure modes for rotor and blades is presented. Based on the requirements for failure modes monitoring, a proposition for a multipurpose sensor network is presented. The network aims to monitor rotor performance, blade integrity and damage accumulation at three different scales referred to as macro layer, meso layer and micro layer. The final part presents the requirements for WSNs design in relation with sensing, processing, communication, actuation and power supply.\u