Investigation of Energy Scavenging Interface Circuit for Embedded Systems in WSN

Objectives: To investigate and design energy scavenging interface circuit for embedded systems focus on wireless sensor network (WSN) using photovoltaic cell. Experimenting with storage elements like super capacitors. Methods/ Statistical Analysis: Embedded systems in wireless sensor networks are the sensor node which plays an important role in monitoring applications. These sensor nodes are battery powered and have limited lifetime. To increase the lifetime of the sensor node energy scavenging is a better solution along with storage element like super capacitor and rechargeable batteries. In the presented work sensor node power requirements are calculated and based on calculations a solar energy scavenging interface circuit was designed and experimented. Findings: Performance analysis of photovoltaic cell and proposed circuit was done successfully with super capacitor as storage element. Charge and discharge characteristics of the super capacitors shows that the sensor node lifetime can be increased significantly and keep it alive for almost full day. Presented work outlines our real-time experiences with the energy scavenging interface circuit in terms of simulation and experimental work. Novelty/Improvement: The proposed system will work as a base for further experimentation to improve the scavenger design in wireless sensor network. Larger value of super capacitor can improve the system performance. More experiments can be done by having both options of super capacitor and rechargeable batteries.