Feasibility of Energy Harvesting in Industrial Automation Wireless Networks

Abstract The energy consumption of industrial wireless devices and the resulting requirement for battery changes is one of the limiting factors of this technology. In this paper, an overview over the special requirements of wireless systems with a focus on energy consumption is given. This is then matched against the possibilities provided by energy harvesting in an industrial environment in order to evaluate the feasibility of fully autonomous devices. Experimental results from the deployment of energy harvesting methods in a simulated process as well as results from an integrated autonomous temperature transmitter are given.

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