Autonomous wireless sensor network based Building Energy and Environment Monitoring system design

Wireless sensor network technology emerged in recent years with numerous potential applications. The building environment and energy monitoring (BEEM) is among the most important ones. The design of such smart wireless sensing system is presented in this paper. The proposed system consists of low power Tyndall wireless sensor node hardware with light energy harvesting featured power supply and energy management system for long-term deployment. Energy consumption, light level, temperature and humidity parameters are measured and transmitted via a 2.4GHz Zigbee wireless network. Evaluations of the system are conducted in a local office building with a total of 62 nodes operating with varying functions. The evaluation results of the system including the measured energy and environmental data are presented. The evaluation results show that this design is world's first known indoor light energy harvesting powered BEEM system.