Modular WSN node for environmental monitoring with energy harvesting support

Environmental protection is one of the most challenging tasks for humanity. All of the latest technologies to certain extent are applied in this area, among others, wireless sensor networks as well. In this paper a wireless sensor node designed specifically for monitoring of environmental parameters is described. The main advantage of this node is the use of energy harvesting techniques and supercapacitor as power supply method. The absence of batteries affects the reduction of maintenance costs and environmental impact. The paper shows that combination of energy harvesting and supercapacitor represents a sustainable solution of constant power supply of wireless sensor network node.