Energy harvesting wireless sensors for smart home applications

Wireless sensors went through a significant evolution in the past years, however the battery based operation still not sustainable for longer periods. Energy harvesting can be the solution, if some conditions are met. In this paper solar cells and thermoelectric generators as power sources were inspected in detail, special power supply and storage units were designed for this purpose. Numerous measurements were taken to determine the average minimal energy enough to operate a wireless sensor. Predictive calculations of the harvestable energy were performed to utilize all the available energy without wasting it. This resulted in a significant improvement: the sensor was able to send 25% more messages using same amount of harvested energy.