Performance Evaluation of Energy-Autonomous Sensors Using Power-Harvesting Beacons for Environmental Monitoring in Internet of Things (IoT)

Abstract

Environmental conditions and air quality monitoring have become crucial today due to the undeniable changes of the climate and accelerated urbanization. To efficiently monitor environmental parameters such as temperature, humidity, and the levels of pollutants, such as fine particulate matter (PM2.5) and volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in the air, and to collect data covering vast geographical areas, the development of cheap energy-autonomous sensors for large scale deployment and fine-grained data acquisition is required. Rapid advances in electronics and communication technologies along with the emergence of paradigms such as Cyber-Physical Systems (CPSs) and the Internet of Things (IoT) have led to the development of low-cost sensor devices that can operate unattended for long periods of time and communicate using wired or wireless connections through the Internet. We investigate the energy efficiency of an environmental monitoring system based on Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) beacons that operate in the IoT environment. The beacons developed measure the temperature, the relative humidity, the light intensity, and the CO2 and VOC levels in the air. Based on our analysis we have developed efficient sleep scheduling algorithms that allow the sensor nodes developed to operate autonomously without requiring the replacement of the power supply. The experimental results show that low-power sensors communicating using BLE technology can operate autonomously (from the energy perspective) in applications that monitor the environment or the air quality in indoor or outdoor settings.

Indoor Air Quality Monitoring Systems Based on Internet of Things: A Systematic Review

“…Solar cells have also been used for powering real-time monitoring systems as an evolutionary solution for green energy buildings. However, it was implemented by two studies only [ 62 , 84 ].…”

“…However, ZigBee is widely preferred for its minimum energy consumption, and affordable cost of network setup [ 106 ]. In the future, it will be possible to integrate Wi-Fi modules with solar cells for green monitoring capabilities [ 62 ]. Solar cells can ensure a reliable solution for smart city and smart village projects while offering environment-friendly applications [ 107 ].…”

Energy Harvesting Techniques for Internet of Things (IoT)

“…PV cells are a well-known technology which have been used in a wide range of IoT devices. When PV technology is used in conjunction with adequate energy storage, power consumption optimization, appropriate circuit design and dimensioning, we can develop efficient energy autonomous devices [49], [50], [51], [52], [53]. Energy harvesting using PV technology was initially intended for outdoor use.…”

“…Some practical techniques for reducing the energy required by an IoT device, also used in the development of low-power embedded systems, include Dynamic Voltage Scaling (DVS) [109], the reduction of the frequency of the processing unit [110], or the appropriate selection of peripherals in the device [111] or of the type of memory involved in data processing and storage (i.e., Flash or RAM -Random access memory) [112], the adaptation of transmission power depending on required communication range and environment [113,114], or logic for deciding the moment and format for sending slow varying data [115 -117]. All these approaches for assuring low-power operation must be scheduled and further modified depending also on the amount of energy that is generated or stored by the IoT device at each moment in time [50]. Since in most cases of wireless IoT devices, communication is the most expensive operation from an energy perspective [118], many of the research efforts focus on efficient communication protocols [118 -122] and on the optimization of the transmission, through careful planning and simple data exchanges [115,123,124].…”

Nanotechnology for Biosensors: A Review

“…Ma et al introduced a visible light-enabled indoor localization system for low-power IoT sensors [249]. Mois et al evaluated self-powered environmental monitoring systems that use Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) beacons that operate in the IoT environment [250]. We have also noticed a tumultuous increase in media coverage of this technology as well, where research in low power sensor technology intended for IoT based applications is being boosted by some of the major industrial giants such as Apple, Google, Amazon and On Semiconductor [251]- [260].…”