An Efficient Solar Energy Harvesting System for Wireless Sensor Nodes

Abstract

The Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN) are the basic building blocks of today’s modern internet of Things (IoT) infrastructure in smart buildings, smart parking, and smart cities. The WSN nodes suffer from a major design constraint that their battery energy is limited and can work only for a few days depending upon the duty cycle of operation. In this paper, we propose a new solution to this design problem by using ambient solar photovoltaic energy. Here, we propose a highly efficient and unique solar energy harvesting system for rechargeable battery based WSN nodes. Ideally, the optimized Solar Energy Harvesting Wireless Sensor Network (SEH-WSN) nodes should operate for infinite network lifetime (in years). In this paper, we propose a novel and efficient solar-powered battery-charging system with maximum power point tracking (MPPT) for WSN nodes. The research focus is on to increase the overall harvesting system efficiency, which depends upon Solar Panel Efficiency, MPPT controlled DC-DC converter efficiency and rechargeable battery efficiency. Several models for solar energy harvester system have been developed and iterative simulation was performed in MATLAB/SIMULINK for solar powered DC-DC converters with MPPT to achieve optimum results. From the simulation results, it is proved that our designed solar energy harvesting system has 96% efficiency($\eta_{sys}$).