Battery Free Wireless LoRaWAN End Sensor Node for IoT Applications

Abstract

As a major source of energy, wireless Internet of Things (IoT) endpoints rely on batteries. The batteries are short-lived, large in size, and bulky. But the most important thing is that batteries are extremely harmful to the environment. This necessitates the use of battery-free devices, which provide a promising alternative to a sustainable and stable IoT, where the energy collected from the environment is stored in systems of supercapacitors or ultracapacitors. Limited storage of collected energy and the unpredictability of collected energy lead to periodic behavior when the device is turned on and off. Measuring and understanding the current consumption and execution time of various tasks of IoT applications is crucial for the proper operation of these devices without batteries. In this article, we report a successfully designed and tested wireless LoRaWAN end sensor node without battery for IoT applications. The fundamental feature is the realized extremely low value of energy consumption that allows using supercapacitor and solar harvesting energy to power the microcontroller and sensors. We use a LTC3588 nano power energy harvester IC, solar panel and supercapacitor to power the wireless sensor node.