Optimization of microcontroller hardware parameters for Wireless Sensor Network node power consumption and lifetime improvement

In this article the results for study of the influence of different microcontroller hardware parameters on the system overall power consumption and thus also on the system lifetime are presented. The influence of the supply voltage, clock frequency and emplacement of the program in the microcontroller memory for MSP430 microcontroller, which is often used nowadays in Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN) nodes, were evaluated. Additionally, we have studied the influence of different power supply systems for the node lifetime and figured out the optimal microcontroller working mode parameters, which allowed to maximize the amount of microcontroller operations for power supply charge using a normal battery and an energy harvesting system based on light energy harvesting. Although the motivation of this article has been the requirements of energy efficient WSN solutions obtained results are as well applicable to any microcontroller based embedded system that is working in harsh energy conditions.