Energy-Sustainable IoT Connectivity: Vision, Technological Enablers, Challenges, and Future Directions

Technology solutions must effectively balance economic growth, social equity, and environmental integrity to achieve a sustainable society. Notably, although the Internet of Things (IoT) paradigm constitutes a key sustainability enabler, critical issues such as the increasing maintenance operations, energy consumption, and manufacturing/disposal of IoT devices have long-term negative economic, societal, and environmental impacts and must be efficiently addressed. This calls for self-sustainable IoT ecosystems requiring minimal external resources and intervention, effectively utilizing renewable energy sources, and recycling materials whenever possible, thus encompassing energy sustainability. In this work, we focus on energy-sustainable IoT during the operation phase, although our discussions sometimes extend to other sustainability aspects and IoT lifecycle phases. Specifically, we provide a fresh look at energy-sustainable IoT and identify energy provision, transfer, and energy efficiency as the three main energy-related processes whose harmonious coexistence pushes toward realizing self-sustainable IoT systems. Their main related technologies, recent advances, challenges, and research directions are also discussed. Moreover, we overview relevant performance metrics to assess the energy-sustainability potential of a certain technique, technology, device, or network and list some target values for the next generation of wireless systems. Overall, this paper offers insights that are valuable for advancing sustainability goals for present and future generations.Comment: 25 figures, 12 tables, submitted to IEEE Open Journal of the Communications Societ

Design, Implementation, and Performance Evaluation of a Flexible Low-Latency Nanowatt Wake-Up Radio Receiver

Wireless sensor networks (WSNs) have received significant attention in recent years and have found a wide range of applications, including structural and environmental monitoring, mobile health, home automation, Internet of Things, and others. As these systems are generally battery operated, major research efforts focus on reducing power consumption, especially for communication, as the radio transceiver is one of the most power-hungry components of a WSN. Moreover, with the advent of energy-neutral systems, the emphasis has shifted toward research in microwatt (or even nanowatt) communication protocols or systems. A significant number of wake-up radio receiver (WUR) architectures have been proposed to reduce the communication power of WSN nodes. In this work, we present an optimized ultra-low power (nanowatt) wake-up receiver for use in WSNs, designed with low-cost off-the-shelf components. The wake-up receiver achieves power consumption of 152 nW (with-32 dBm sensitivity), sensitivity up to-55 dBm (with maximum power of 1,2 μW), latency from 8 μs, tunable frequency, and short commands communication. In addition, a low power solution, which includes addressing capability directly in the wake-up receiver, is proposed. Experimental results and simulations demonstrate low power consumption, functionality, and benefits of the design optimization compared with other solutions, as well as the benefits of addressing false positive (FP) outcomes reduction

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