A Comparative Analysis between Battery- and Solar-Powered Wireless Sensors for Soil Water Monitoring

Applied Sciences

Zisis Tsiropoulos¹  Ioannis Gravalos¹  Tomáš Petrík²  Vladislav Poulek²  Martin Libra²  Evangelos Skoubris³ 

[1] Department of Agrotechnology, School of Agricultural Sciences, University of Thessaly, Periferiaki odos Larissas—Trikalon, 41500 Larissa, Greece;Department of Physics, Faculty of Engineering, Czech University of Life Sciences Prague, Kamýcká 129, 16500 Prague, Czech Republic;Department of Surveying and Geoinformatics Engineering, School of Engineering, Agiou Spyridonos, University of West Attica, 12243 Egaleo, Greece;

关键词: wireless technology;    sensor node;    power source;    photovoltaics;    solar irradiance;   

DOI  :  10.3390/app12031130

来源: DOAJ

【 摘 要 】

Wireless sensor networks (WSN) have found wide applications in many fields (such as agriculture) over last few years, and research interest is constantly increasing. However, power supply to the sensor nodes remains an issue to be resolved. Batteries are usually used to power the sensor nodes, but they have a limited lifetime, so solar energy harvesters are a good alternative solution. This study provides a comparative analysis between battery and solar energy harvesters for sensor nodes used for soil water monitoring. Experimental results show that small-sized solar panels with low-power energy harvester circuits and rechargeable batteries distinctly outperform secondary batteries in outdoor and continuous-operation applications. The power level of the energy storage device of sensor node 1, which was powered by a small PV panel, remained constantly close to 90% for all days. The power of the other three nodes, which were powered by a rechargeable battery, was initially at 100% of the charge and gradually started to reduce. Sensor node 1 performed a total of 1288 activations during the experimental period, while sensor nodes 2 and 4 behaved satisfactorily and performed a total of 781 and 803 activations, respectively. In contrast, sensor node 3 did not exhibit the same behavior throughout the experiments.

【 授权许可】

Unknown