A COMPREHENSIVE SCHEME for RECONFIGURABLE ENERGY-AWARE WIRELESS SENSOR NODES by Alexander Stewart Weddell
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When referring to this work, full bibliographic details including the author, title, awarding institution and date of the thesis must be given e.g. AUTHOR (year of submission) "Full thesis title", University of Southampton, name of the University School or Department, PhD Thesis, pagination http://eprints.soton.ac.uk UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHAMPTON FACULTY OF ENGINEERING, SCIENCE AND MATHEMATICS School of Electronics and Computer Science A Comprehensive Scheme for Reconfigurable Energy-Aware Wireless Sensor Nodes by Alexander Stewart Weddell Thesis for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy May 2010 UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHAMPTON ABSTRACT FACULTY OF ENGINEERING, SCIENCE AND MATHEMATICS SCHOOL OF ELECTRONICS AND COMPUTER SCIENCE Doctor of Philosophy A COMPREHENSIVE SCHEME FOR RECONFIGURABLE ENERGY-AWARE WIRELESS SENSOR NODES by Alexander Stewart Weddell Wireless sensor nodes are devices that perform measurements (of parameters such as temperature or vibration) and communicate over a wireless medium. A key benefit is that they can operate autonomously. Nodes are commonly battery-powered so that they can be deployed rapidly without the need to install a wired power supply; however, batteries must be changed when depleted and this can impose a costly maintenance re- quirement. Energy harvesting is an emerging field, which offers the possibility for nodes to be powered indefinitely from environmental energy (such as light, vibration, or tem- perature difference). The power generated from environmental energy is often limited and variable, and nodes must be able to adapt their operation to take account of the power available. There have been a number of demonstrations of wireless sensor nodes powered from harvested energy, but existing demonstrators are tailored for specific types of energy resource (constraining their use to applications with suitable energy availabil- ity). The existing interfaces between the energy hardware and the nodes' embedded software is bespoke and limited to specific devices, so it is impossible to exchange the energy hardware to adapt to differing energy availability. The work described in this thesis delivers a comprehensive scheme for reconfigurable energy-aware sensor nodes, which overcomes the limitations of the existing systems and allows the energy hardware for sensor nodes to be connected together in a plug-and-play manner. The scheme has been evaluated by way of a prototype which accommodates a range of energy devices. The main contributions of this research are threefold: firstly, the system is enabled by a new hardware interface between the energy devices and sensor node; secondly, an embedded software structure is implemented to interface with the energy hardware; and thirdly, efficient energy-aware modules compliant with the scheme have been produced. The combined result is a novel energy subsystem for wireless sensor nodes that supports a range of energy devices and can deliver energy-aware operation for a range of microcontroller platforms, while imposing a minimal additional resource requirement to deliver this functionality. Contents Declaration of Authorship xvii Acknowledgements xix Nomenclature xxiii Abbreviations xxv 1 Introduction 1 1.1 Wireless autonomous sensing . .1 1.2 Outline of the AEASN project . .3 1.3 Justification for this research . .4 1.4 Contributions of this research . .6 1.5 What is ‘reconfigurability'? . .8 1.6 Publications . .8 1.7 Document structure . .9 2 Background: Energy, Sensing, and Wireless Communication 11 2.1 Introduction . 11 2.2 Energy storage . 11 2.2.1 Motivations and overview . 11 2.2.2 Non-rechargeable (primary) batteries . 12 2.2.3 Rechargeable (secondary) batteries . 14 2.2.4 Supercapacitors . 16 2.2.5 Other energy storage mechanisms . 16 2.2.6 Discussion . 17 2.3 Energy harvesting and wireless power transfer . 18 2.3.1 Motivations and overview . 18 2.3.2 Photovoltaics . 18 2.3.3 Vibration energy harvesting . 20 2.3.4 Thermoelectric energy generation . 25 2.3.5 Small-scale fluid flow . 27 2.3.6 Human power . 28 2.3.7 Inductive and RF energy transfer . 29 2.3.8 Hybrid energy harvesting technologies . 30 2.3.9 Summary and discussion . 30 2.4 Technologies for intelligent sensing . 32 2.4.1 The IEEE 1451 standards family . 32 v vi CONTENTS 2.4.2 Transducer electronic data sheets . 33 2.4.3 Extensions to the electronic data sheet concept . 34 2.4.4 System management schemes . 34 2.4.5 Discussion . 35 2.5 Wireless communication protocols . 35 2.5.1 Overview . 35 2.5.2 RF-based methods . 35 2.5.3 Alternative communication methods . 37 2.5.4 Networking and routing . 38 2.5.5 Discussion . 38 2.6 Energy-aware operation . 39 2.6.1 Energy-aware routing . 39 2.6.2 Energy-adaptive behaviour . 39 2.6.3 Achieving energy awareness . 41 2.6.4 Overall lifetime prediction and extension . 42 2.6.5 Discussion . 44 2.7 Wireless sensor node technologies . 44 2.7.1 Microcontrollers, transceivers, and system-on-chip . 44 2.7.2 Commercially-available sensor nodes . 45 2.7.3 Discussion . 46 2.8 Software and algorithm development . 46 2.8.1 Software structures . 46 2.8.2 Operating systems . 47 2.8.3 Discussion . 48 2.9 Existing systems . 49 2.9.1 Wireless sensor system deployments . 49 2.9.2 Systems featuring a single form of energy harvesting . 50 2.9.3 Systems integrating multiple energy resources . 52 2.9.4 Discussion . 53 2.10 Summary . 54 3 Development: Towards a Reconfigurable Energy Subsystem 55 3.1 Introduction . 55 3.2 Design for reconfigurability . 55 3.2.1 Plug-and-play energy subsystem . 55 3.2.2 Modular design . 58 3.2.3 Usage scenario . 60 3.2.4 Major challenges and strategy . 61 3.3 Energy Electronic Data Sheet (EEDS) . 63 3.3.1 Overview and justification . 63 3.3.2 Data sheet format . 64 3.3.3 Hardware and interrogation method . 65 3.4 Common Hardware Interface (CHI) . 66 3.4.1 Overview and justification . 66 3.4.2 EEDS interface . 67 3.4.3 Interface format . 67 3.4.4 Integration of multiple energy sources . 69 CONTENTS vii 3.5 Generalised system hardware specification . 70 3.5.1 Energy multiplexer . 70 3.5.2 Energy modules . 71 3.5.3 Microcontroller requirements . 72 3.5.4 Under- and over-voltage protection . 73 3.6 Energy status determination and algorithms . 73 3.6.1 Overview . 73 3.6.2 Energy monitoring . 74 3.6.3 Categorisation of load type . 75 3.6.4 Supercapacitor state-of-charge and capacity . 76 3.6.5 Battery state-of-charge and capacity . 78 3.6.6 Power monitoring . 80 3.7 Software structure . 81 3.7.1 Overall software structure . 81 3.7.2 The `Energy Stack' . 82 3.7.3 The `Sensing Stack' . 85 3.8 General system operation . 86 3.8.1 Start-up . 86 3.8.2 Default operation . 86 3.8.3 Monitoring and active management . 87 3.8.4 Network-level interactions . 87 3.9 Towards a prototype to verify the approach . 88 3.9.1 Overview . 88 3.9.2 Evaluation criteria . 88 3.10 Summary . 89 4 Case Study: Deployment in a Prototype System { Hardware 91 4.1 Introduction . 91 4.2 Overview of the case study . 91 4.2.1 Scenario . 91 4.2.2 Available energy sources . 92 4.2.3 Utilised energy stores . 94 4.3 Components and energy management circuits . 94 4.3.1 Low-power system components . ..