Experimental Testbed for Monitoring the Energy Requirements of LPWAN Equipped Sensor Nodes

Abstract

This paper presents a simple and flexible testbed for measuring and/or modifying the behaviour of sensor nodes equipped with radio interfaces of interest, like the LoRa ones. The proposed experimental testbed is using a module that measures the overall power consumption of the raspberry pi based sensor nodes hosting the radio modules like the LoRa interface. The power consumption measurements are performed at electric charge level and not at electric current level so as not to miss the sudden energy drains the radio transmit operation is invoking. Furthermore, the radio behaviour (e.g. transmit power or data rate modification) can be easily controlled via simple commands, sent via a conventional smart phone, making the overall setup ideal for educational purposes or not very experienced personnel.