PowerMod: An Open Source, Configurable Power Harvesting and Regulation Tool for Non-experts

We present the design, implementation, and evaluation of PowerMod, a hardware system that can harvest energy and store from low voltage, low current sources sufficient to usefully power electronics that expect battery-level voltages and currents. PowerMod has been designed to be used by developers who are not electrical engineers or power supply experts. The goal of PowerMod is to make it possible for typical sensor network practitioners, particularly those whose expertise lies in software, to fabricate and use power harvesting hardware in their applications. Instances of PowerMod can be fabricated from our open source design. This document serves as a user guide for the system. This project is made possible by support from the National Science Foundation (NSF) via grant CNS-0721978.

[1]  High efficiency solar battery charger with embedded MPPT , 2013 .

[2]  David E. Culler,et al.  Telos: enabling ultra-low power wireless research , 2005, IPSN 2005. Fourth International Symposium on Information Processing in Sensor Networks, 2005..

[3]  Peter A. Dinda,et al.  Evaluating a BASIC approach to sensor network node programming , 2009, SenSys '09.

[4]  Zhi Ang Eu,et al.  Wireless sensor networks powered by ambient energy harvesting (WSN-HEAP) - Survey and challenges , 2009, 2009 1st International Conference on Wireless Communication, Vehicular Technology, Information Theory and Aerospace & Electronic Systems Technology.

[5]  Julien Penders,et al.  Energy Harvesting for Autonomous Wireless Sensor Networks , 2010, IEEE Solid-State Circuits Magazine.

[6]  J.M. Conrad,et al.  A survey of energy harvesting sources for embedded systems , 2008, IEEE SoutheastCon 2008.

[7]  Daniel Wesley Harrist.  Wireless Battery Charging System using Radio Frequency Energy Harvesting , 2004 .

[8]  Mario Di Francesco,et al.  Energy conservation in wireless sensor networks: A survey , 2009, Ad Hoc Networks.

[9]  Peter A. Dinda,et al.  Simplified programming of faulty sensor networks via code transformation and run-time interval computation , 2011, 2011 Design, Automation & Test in Europe.

[10]  Pai H. Chou,et al.  Eco: an ultra-compact low-power wireless sensor node for real-time motion monitoring , 2005, IPSN 2005. Fourth International Symposium on Information Processing in Sensor Networks, 2005..

[11]  R.P. Dick,et al.  Lucid Dreaming: Reliable Analog Event Detection for Energy-Constrained Applications , 2007, 2007 6th International Symposium on Information Processing in Sensor Networks.

[12]  Peter A. Dinda,et al.  Archetype-based design: Sensor network programming for application experts, not just programming experts , 2009, 2009 International Conference on Information Processing in Sensor Networks.

[13]  Lan S. Bai,et al.  Simplifying Design of Wireless Sensor Networks with Programming Languages, Compilers, and Synthesis , 2011 .

[14]  Jan M. Rabaey,et al.  Power Sources for Wireless Sensor Networks , 2004, EWSN.

[15]  Vinod Sharma,et al.  Optimal energy management policies for energy harvesting sensor nodes , 2008, IEEE Transactions on Wireless Communications.

[16]  Pai H. Chou,et al.  DuraCap: A supercapacitor-based, power-bootstrapping, maximum power point tracking energy-harvesting system , 2010, 2010 ACM/IEEE International Symposium on Low-Power Electronics and Design (ISLPED).

[17]  Mani B. Srivastava,et al.  Heliomote: enabling long-lived sensor networks through solar energy harvesting , 2005, SenSys '05.