Energy Harvesting Meets IoT: Fuelling Adoption of Transient Computing in Embedded Systems

Abstract

The emerging class of transient computing systems enables computation to be sustained despite power outages due to the variable nature of energy harvesting. However, existing approaches are largely designed for specific architectures, and hence are not broadly applicable across different IoT devices. Emerging platforms based on portable, hardware-independent software should rely on lightweight operating systems (OSs) designed specifically for embedded IoT applications, such as Arm mbed OS and Contiki OS. To enable the widespread use of transient computing, transient approaches need to be integrated into these operating systems. In this paper, we discuss the challenges of providing software primitives for transient computing to facilitate hardware-independent implementation using standard OS APIs, and present the integration of a state-ofart transient approach, Hibernus into mbed OS. This OS is chosen due to the large community of developers and the open-source IoT code availability. Transient computing is offered through a modular and layered structure that uses the available mbed OS APIs, including different strategies for retaining the system state designed for different types of flash memory. To illustrate the applicability of the proposed design, we implemented Hibernus on two mbed platforms with different flash memories, which respectively requires 4.7mF and 4.9mF of additional storage.

More Accurate Cost Estimation for Internet of Things Projects by Adaptation of Use Case Points Methodology

“…(4) In an IoT project, electronics and software specialists must collaborate. This heterogeneity, combined with insufficient knowledge of the technologies used, may prolong the actual implementation time [53], [54] .…”

Smart Power Unit—mW-to-nW Power Management and Control for Self-Sustainable IoT Devices

“…The literature on energy harvesting to perpetually power smart devices has been very prolific, with many examples of self-sustainable devices [1][5] [19][20]. One of the most important requirements in designing the EH subsystem is the low quiescent current and the high-energy efficiency of the conversion across the operation ranges, typically achieved with maximum power point tracking (MPPT) [5][19] [20] [21]. A recent survey of power conversion for sensors nodes exploiting energy harvesting, including an overview of EH topologies, energy storage technologies, and algorithms is given in [1].…”

Energy cooperation in wireless relay networks

“…In some certain circumstances, the batteries cannot be replaced regularly after relay nodes are placed, and the nodes may stop operating on account of exhausted energy [3]. Fortunately, the emergence of energy‐harvesting technology can just overcome this bottleneck [4, 5, 6]. Simultaneously, energy‐harvesting technology plays an important role in extending the lifetime of Internet of Things (IoT) devices and achieving a sustainability of the IoT systems [7].…”