Low-Power WSN System for Honey Bee Monitoring

Abstract

The paper presents a universal low-power system for biosensory data acquisition in scope of bees monitoring. We describe the architecture of the system, energy-saving components as well as we discuss the selection of used sensors. The work focuses on energy optimization in a scope of wireless communication. A custom protocol was implemented, which is the basis for presented energy-efficient devices. Data exchange process during network initialization and measurement collection was presented. The core principles are devices synchronization and parallel clocks. Devices wake up in their time slot in order to exchange data. For the energy consumption tests, Keysight N6705B power analyzer was used to draw accurate current intake characteristic. The most demanding operations in terms of power consumption were communication and microphone recordings. The performance of devices in case of non-optimized operation, i.e. when optimization techniques are switched off, was compared. It has been shown that devices equipped with 2200 mAh battery can operate continuously for 2 years and 7 months, which gives 3600% increase in operating days compared to the non-optimized case.