Abstract
To significantly reduce, or eliminate completely, the energy waste caused by the standby (idle) mode of wireless sensor nodes, we propose a novel on-demand wake-up system, which allows the nodes to be put into sleep mode unless their activation is truly necessary. Although there have been many studies proposing RF-based wake-up radio systems, in this work, we develop the first visible light communication (VLC)-based wake-up system. The developed system can extend the existing VLC systems and can be exploited to derive new application areas such as VLC tags. The system uses an off-the-shell indoor solar panel as receptor device of the wake-up signal as well as for energy harvesting purposes, through which it is able to harvest enough energy for its autonomous work. The design, implementation details and the experimental evaluation results are presented, which include flickering characterization and wake-up range evaluations. The results show that the developed system achieve reasonable wake-up distances for indoor environments, mainly where the use of VLC systems are considered.
Highlights
To achieve longer battery life of wireless sensor nodes, a common method employed is duty-cycling
The use of a wake-up receiver permits the wireless nodes to remain in sleep mode as long as possible
We propose the use of solar panel to develop a wake-up communication system using Visible Light Communication (VLC) as communication channel of the wake-up signal
Summary
To achieve longer battery life of wireless sensor nodes, a common method employed is duty-cycling. With current indoor solar panel technology, the amount of power harvested is limited (e.g., less than 90 μW by the solar panel evaluated in this study for a light intensity of 200 lux) This amount of power can be used for very low power communication devices such as wake-up receivers, e.g., less than 30 μW is required. In this work we describe the complete system and use the indoor solar panel for harvesting the energy for the wake-up device operation This novel wake-up communication system will allow: (i) the use of light as a wireless channel for the wake-up signal; (ii) to put the wireless sensor nodes to deep sleep mode to conserve energy, until it is really necessary to enter in active mode; (iii) to enable the wake-up device to work through an addressable wake-up, i.e., waking up only the wireless nodes that are destined; (iv) to contribute the research direction of battery-less wake-up receiver by using the solar panel both for charging and communication purposes; and (v) to enable novel applications such as light-driven localization, asset control, etc.
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