Energy-Aware System Design for Autonomous Wireless Sensor Nodes: A Comprehensive Review

Abstract

Nowadays, wireless sensor networks are becoming increasingly important in several sectors including industry, transportation, environment and medicine. This trend is reinforced by the spread of Internet of Things (IoT) technologies in almost all sectors. Autonomous energy supply is thereby an essential aspect as it decides the flexible positioning and easy maintenance, which are decisive for the acceptance of this technology, its wide use and sustainability. Significant improvements made in the last years have shown interesting possibilities for realizing energy-aware wireless sensor nodes (WSNs) by designing manifold and highly efficient energy converters and reducing energy consumption of hardware, software and communication protocols. Using only a few of these techniques or focusing on only one aspect is not sufficient to realize practicable and market relevant solutions. This paper therefore provides a comprehensive review on system design for battery-free and energy-aware WSN, making use of ambient energy or wireless energy transmission. It addresses energy supply strategies and gives a deep insight in energy management methods as well as possibilities for energy saving on node and network level. The aim therefore is to provide deep insight into system design and increase awareness of suitable techniques for realizing battery-free and energy-aware wireless sensor nodes.

Design and Implementation of an Energy-Efficient Weather Station for Wind Data Collection

“…Most of the recent related activities are focused on reducing the transmission rate at the source, as transmitting data wirelessly is, generally, the most energy demanding task for the sensing device [ 30 , 43 ]. Alternatively, one can use suitable power-aware data compression schemes to reduce the average packet size, as done in Reference [ 31 , 44 ].…”

Range-Based Localization of a Wireless Sensor Network for Internet of Things Using Received Signal Strength Indicator and the Most Valuable Player Algorithm

“…Usually, hundreds of wireless sensors share a network to communicate useful information with each other. Therefore, WSNs are becoming crucial, supported by increasing trends of digitalization [1]. This lays down the cornerstone of the concept of the Internet of Things (IoT), which is considered to be the next step in a digital society, whereby, multi-purpose devices share a networking platform to communicate with each other in a common language [2,3].…”

Inductive Tracking Methodology for Wireless Sensors in Photoreactors

“…A suitable energy supply for the sensors has to be chosen. Kanoun et al [ 10 ] reviewed methods for an efficient energy supply of wireless sensor nodes. The use of a wireless power transfer provides benefits as e.g., a battery-free sensor node design.…”

“…The use of a wireless power transfer provides benefits as e.g., a battery-free sensor node design. Additionally, it shows great potential for non-accessible systems [ 10 ]. Due to the aforementioned advantages and the already existing inductive power supply for the internal illumination, which can also be used for the sensors, our sensors are also planned to be supplied wirelessly with energy.…”