A green router with built-in renewable energy module: Design, implementation and evaluation

Abstract

Contemporary telecommunication systems are rapidly growing. High transmission speed and power consumption in such networks are an increasing concern. Therefore, building blocks of such networks need improvements in different aspects of their characteristics. In this paper we present an Open Source low power router which supports renewable energy by using an ultracapacitor based energy compatibility module. The described router achieves a packet rate of 580 kpps and a maximum throughput of 2.8 Gbps, consuming approximately 25 Watts. The energy compatibility module consists of a scalable design with low maintenance requirements. Our measurements show that the mentioned energy module has an efficiency of above 90%.