Sustaining the Life of Wireless Sensor Node with Energy Harvesting

Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN) play a significant role in a number of sensing and monitoring applications. It has also become a key enabling technology for Internet of Things (IoT). Most of the earlier works were focused on extending the battery life by reducing the energy consumption of the wireless node. Availability of small footprint devices capable of ambient energy harvesting has triggered renewed interest in enhancing the performance of WSNs. In this paper we propose a novel method that can be applied to duty cycle based Media Access Control (MAC) protocols in energy harvesting WSNs to sustain the life of the node. Our approach takes into consideration the solar energy available at any instant of time so as to maximize the performance. We have conducted detailed measurements and analysis of solar energy harvested under different conditions. Our results show significant enhancement in throughput achieved while sustaining the life of the node.