Device characterization and cross-layer protocol design for RF energy harvesting sensors

• Published in: Pervasive and mobile computing 2013-02, Vol.9 (1), p.120-131
• Main Authors: Nintanavongsa, Prusayon, Doost-Mohammady, Rahman, Di Felice, Marco, Chowdhury, Kaushik
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Ambient radio frequency; Duty cycle; Energy harvesting; Routing; Sensor networks
• ISSN: 1574-1192; 1873-1589
• DOI: 10.1016/j.pmcj.2012.09.004

Energy harvesting from ambient radio frequency waves has the potential for realizing long lived wireless sensor networks, by reducing their dependence on the limited and irreplaceable on-board batteries. We propose two cross-layer approaches, called device-agnostic (DA) and device-specific (DS) protocols, for such networks composed of energy harvesting boards connected to off-the-shelf available sensors. These protocols determine the routing paths and the harvesting-transmission duty cycle at each hop under different conditions. The DA scheme relies purely on the local measurements on the harvesting capability of a node after the sensors are deployed, and is useful for single-flow networks. The DS scheme provides a joint hardware–software optimization by allowing the selection of the energy storing capacitor, apart from the route and duty cycle determination. Both schemes rely on a rich set of device-level experimental studies that help provide exact performance characteristics in practical scenarios, and results reveal significant performance improvement over other existing schemes.