Cloud Factory Environment Monitoring Using Energy-Harvesting Wireless Sensor Networks

• Main Authors: Tseng, Chwan-Lu, Cheng, Che-Shen, Hsu, Yu-Hsien, Yang, Bing-Hung, Zheng, Jie-Han
• Format: Conference Proceeding
• Language: English
• Subjects: cloud; Cloud computing; factory environment monitoring; Monitoring; piezoelectric energy-harvesting module; Piezoelectric materials; Production facilities; Servers; Vibrations; Wireless sensor networks
• ISSN: 2577-1655
• DOI: 10.1109/SMC.2018.00418

This study proposes a piezoelectric energy-harvesting module (PEHM) for sensor nodes, which can provide energy by using motor vibration signals. Moreover, a prototype PEHM is developed in this study, which is used by sensor nodes in an environmental monitoring system. The monitoring system consists of a front-end sensing platform, a back-end server, and a cloud database. The monitoring data are collected by the sensor nodes and then transmitted to the back-end server using a layered multi-hop scheme. The goals of the monitoring system are to detect motor in the factory. The information of motor faults are displayed on a webpage in real time, after the monitoring data are processed and analyzed to find motor faults. In addition, all monitoring data and analysis results are uploaded to the cloud database, so remote monitoring can be achieved. Also, the proposed PEHM is field tested where motors operate continuously. In the test, the nodes transmit a heavy-load packets for 10 minutes and then enter the sleep mode. The PEHM operating at the rated motor speed of 1800rpm, charging for 24.3 hours is observed to reach the node power self-sufficiency. The test results show that the proposed PEHM is capably of stably suppling energy to sensor nodes and building up a cloud factory monitoring system by using the wireless sensor network with PEHM.