bSlight 2.0: Battery-Free Sustainable Smart Street Light Management System

Street lighting is one of the prominent applications that demand a massive amount of power and substantially contributes to the energy budget of a country. Light Emitting Diode (LED) and the advancement of Internet of Things (IoT) have significantly improved conventional street light technology. Nevertheless, the rapid growth of IoT devices has presented a formidable challenge in powering the vast array of IoT devices. In this manuscript, a sustainable, battery-free, low-power street light management system has been proposed which is powered from hybrid solar and solar thermal energy harvesting scheme integrated with an efficient power management unit. As a specific case study, the prototype has been implemented with an existing LED street light in India. The characteristics and performance of the prototype have been evaluated to ensure its seamless operation under real-world scenarios. The average power consumption of the system is measured as 2.088 mW when operating in real-time with 50% duty cycle, exhibiting high Quality of Service (QoS). It features long-range communication up to 761 m through implementing LoRaWAN technology. Dimension of the prototype has been restricted to 10.5 cm × 6.5 cm × 2.3 cm to make it suitable for retrofitting with existing LED based street lights.