The harvesting of energy from ambient energy sources to power electronic devices has been recognized as a promising solution to the issue of powering the ever-growing number of mobile devices around us.Key technologies in the rapidly growing field of energy harvesting focus on developing solutions to capture ambient energy surrounding the mobile devices and convert it into usable electrical energy for the purpose of recharging said devices. Achieving a sustainable network lifetime via battery-aware designs brings forth a new frontier for energy optimization techniques. These techniques had, in their early stages, resulted in the development of low-power hardware designs. Today, they have evolved into power-aware designs and even battery-aware designs.This book covers recent results in the field of rechargeable sensor networks, including technologies and protocol designs to enable harvesting energy from alternative energy sources such as vibrations, temperature variations, wind, solar, and biochemical energy and passive human power.

Wireless sensor networks, due to their various applications in many fields and limited power consumption, have attracted much attention recently. Most previous methods have focused on providing energy-saving strategies to elevate the lifetime of sensor networks. Another aggressive but different approach is to wirelessly recharge sensor nodes to increase the lifetime of the sensor networks. This book collects articles that address state-of-the-art technologies and new developments for wireless rechargeable sensor networks (WRSNs), including the latest hot topics such as charger deployment, charger scheduling, wireless energy transfer, mobile charger design, energy-harvesting technique, and energy provisioning. We believe that the accepted articles present the most up-to-date progress in algorithms and theory for robust wireless sensor networks with respect to different networking problems.

Wireless sensors and sensor networks (WSNs) are nowadays becoming increasingly important due to their decisive advantages. Different trends towards the Internet of Things (IoT), Industry 4.0 and 5G Networks address massive sensing and admit to have wireless sensors delivering measurement data directly to the Web in a reliable and easy manner. These sensors can only be supported, if sufficient energy efficiency and flexible solutions are developed for energy-aware wireless sensor nodes. In the last years, different possibilities for energy harvesting have been investigated showing a high level of maturity. This book gives therefore an overview on fundamentals and techniques for energy harvesting and energy transfer from different points of view. Different techniques and methods for energy transfer, management and energy saving on network level are reported together with selected interesting applications. The book is interesting for researchers, developers and students in the field of sensors, wireless sensors, WSNs, IoT and manifold application fields using related technologies. The book is organized in four major parts. The first part of the book introduces essential fundamentals and methods, while the second part focusses on vibration converters and hybridization. The third part is dedicated to wireless energy transfer, including both RF and inductive energy transfer. Finally, the fourth part of the book treats energy saving and management strategies. The main contents are: Essential fundamentals and methods of wireless sensors Energy harvesting from vibration Hybrid vibration energy converters Electromagnetic transducers Piezoelectric transducers Magneto-electric transducers Non-linear broadband converters Energy transfer via magnetic fields RF energy transfer Energy saving techniques Energy management strategies Energy management on network level Applications in agriculture Applications in structural health monitoring Application in power grids Prof. Dr. Olfa Kanoun is professor for measurement and sensor technology at Chemnitz university of technology. She is specialist in the field of sensors and sensor systems design.

This SpringerBrief provides a concise guide to applying wireless energy transfer techniques in traditional battery-powered sensor networks. It examines the benefits and challenges of wireless power including efficiency and reliability. The authors build a wireless rechargeable sensor networks from scratch and aim to provide perpetual network operation. Chapters cover a wide range of topics from the collection of energy information and recharge scheduling to joint design with typical sensing applications such as data gathering. Problems are approached using a natural combination of probability theory, optimization, algorithm and protocol designs. All proposed mechanisms are evaluated by extensive simulations. Wireless Rechargeable Sensor Networks targets professionals and researchers working in networks, wireless communications, energy technology and information technology. Advanced-level students studying electrical engineering and computer science will also find this material useful as a study guide.

Energy Harvesting Autonomous Sensor Systems: Design, Analysis, and Practical Implementation provides a wide range of coverage of various energy harvesting techniques to enable the development of a truly self-autonomous and sustainable energy harvesting wireless sensor network (EH-WSN). It supplies a practical overview of the entire EH-WSN system from energy source all the way to energy usage by wireless sensor nodes/network. After an in-depth review of existing energy harvesting research thus far, the book focuses on: Outlines two wind energy harvesting (WEH) approaches, one using a wind turbine generator and one a piezoelectric wind energy harvester Covers thermal energy harvesting (TEH) from ambient heat sources with low temperature differences Presents two types of piezoelectric-based vibration energy harvesting systems to harvest impact or impulse forces from a human pressing a button or switch action Examines hybrid energy harvesting approaches that augment the reliability of the wireless sensor node’s operation Discusses a hybrid wind and solar energy harvesting scheme to simultaneously use both energy sources and therefore extend the lifetime of the wireless sensor node Explores a hybrid of indoor ambient light and TEH scheme that uses only one power management circuit to condition the combined output power harvested from both energy sources Although the author focuses on small-scale energy harvesting, the systems discussed can be upsized to large-scale renewable energy harvesting systems. The book goes beyond theory to explore practical applications that not only solve real-life energy issues but pave the way for future work in this area.

Wireless sensor networks, due to their various applications in many fields and limited power consumption, have attracted much attention recently. Most previous methods have focused on providing energy-saving strategies to elevate the lifetime of sensor networks. Another aggressive but different approach is to wirelessly recharge sensor nodes to increase the lifetime of the sensor networks. This book collects articles that address state-of-the-art technologies and new developments for wireless rechargeable sensor networks (WRSNs), including the latest hot topics such as charger deployment, charger scheduling, wireless energy transfer, mobile charger design, energy-harvesting technique, and energy provisioning. We believe that the accepted articles present the most up-to-date progress in algorithms and theory for robust wireless sensor networks with respect to different networking problems.

This second book by the author on WSNs focuses on the concepts of energy, and energy harvesting and management techniques. Definitions and terminologies are made clear without leaning on the relaxing assumption that they are already known or easily reachable, the reader is not to be diverted from the main course. Neatly drawn figures assist in viewing and imagining the offered topics. To make energy related topics felt and seen, the adopted technologies as well as their manufacturers are presented in details. With such a depth, this book is intended for a wide audience, it is meant to be helper and motivator, for the senior undergraduates, postgraduates, researchers, and practitioners; concepts and energy related applications are laid out, research and practical issues are backed by appropriate literature, and new trends are put under focus. For senior undergraduate students, it familiarizes with conceptual foundations and practical projects implementations. Also, it is intended for graduate students working on their thesis and in need of specific knowledge on WSNs and the related energy harvesting and management techniques. Moreover, it is targeting researchers and practitioners interested in features and applications of WSNs, and on the available energy harvesting and management projects and testbeds. Exercises at the end of each chapter are not just questions and answers; they are not limited to recapitulate ideas. Their design objective is not bound to be a methodical review of the provided concepts, but rather as a motivator for lot more of searching, finding, and comparing beyond what has been presented in the book.