Demonstration of Energy-Neutral Operation on a WSN Testbed Using Vibration Energy Harvesting

This paper demonstrates the energy-neutral operation of a wireless sensor network of MicaZ Motes through electromagnetic vibration energy harvesting. The power drawn by Motes for microcontroller operation, data transmission, listening/reception and LED activation are measured. A custom electromagnetic harvester is designed, and experimental results of charging AA batteries that supply the device at 10 Hz vibration and 0.6 g acceleration are exhibited. When the duty cycle for the nodes, employing the standard ZigBee protocol, is appropriately adjusted, the energy harvested fully compensates for the energy used for the operation of the node.