A Comparative Analysis between Battery- and Solar-Powered Wireless Sensors for Soil Water Monitoring

Abstract

Wireless sensor networks (WSN) have found wide applications in many fields (such as agriculture) over last few years, and research interest is constantly increasing. However, power supply to the sensor nodes remains an issue to be resolved. Batteries are usually used to power the sensor nodes, but they have a limited lifetime, so solar energy harvesters are a good alternative solution. This study provides a comparative analysis between battery and solar energy harvesters for sensor nodes used for soil water monitoring. Experimental results show that small-sized solar panels with low-power energy harvester circuits and rechargeable batteries distinctly outperform secondary batteries in outdoor and continuous-operation applications. The power level of the energy storage device of sensor node 1, which was powered by a small PV panel, remained constantly close to 90% for all days. The power of the other three nodes, which were powered by a rechargeable battery, was initially at 100% of the charge and gradually started to reduce. Sensor node 1 performed a total of 1288 activations during the experimental period, while sensor nodes 2 and 4 behaved satisfactorily and performed a total of 781 and 803 activations, respectively. In contrast, sensor node 3 did not exhibit the same behavior throughout the experiments.

Battery-Free Power Supply for Wireless Sensor Combining Photovoltaic Cells and Supercapacitors

“…Sensors powered with energy harvesting have a long operating time, minimum 15 years. More, compared to a sensor node powered solely by a primary battery, the device which combines a rechargeable battery and an energy harvesting system [13] [14] may increase the measurement rate if the amount of harvested energy is favorable.…”

Determination of Crop Soil Quality for Stevia rebaudiana Bertoni Morita II Using a Fuzzy Logic Model and a Wireless Sensor Network

“…Monitoring systems, often referred to as internet of things (IoT) or precision agriculture systems, have emerged as a common solution for collecting data on various variables of interest. These systems enable the gathering of environmental variables [13][14][15][16][17], soil parameters [18][19][20][21][22], and water parameters [23]. Typically, such systems comprise electronic sensors designed to measure specific variables, along with microcontrollers or interconnected microcontrollers that interpret the sensor data and transmit it wirelessly as a wireless sensor network (WSN).…”

“…To facilitate data analysis, these monitoring systems often include a graphical interface that allows users to access and visualize the collected data. Moreover, the interface may support data export for further processing and analysis [13,14,16,17,[19][20][21][22][23].…”

“…LoRa is known for its long-distance transmission capability, although at a lower data rate compared to WIFI. It also has lower power consumption during its operation, which is particularly beneficial for WSNs that rely on battery power [19,24].…”

Solar Powered Wireless Sensor Network for Water Quality Monitoring and Classification

“…Previous study [6] discusses solar energy harvesting for the environment by sensing some parameters such as ambient temperature, relative humidity, atmospheric pressure, and ultraviolet (UV) index. Another study [7] also discusses solarpowered wireless sensors for Soil Water Monitoring. Solar energy harvesting has become the most widely used renewable energy source for outdoor WSN applications.…”