Energy-Harvesting Nanosensor Networks: Efficient event detection

Advances in nanotechnology are paving the way for a new generation of sensor networks at the nanoscale, promising radically new applications in medical, biological, and chemical fields. At the nanoscale, it is difficult to use large batteries for prolonged operations, necessitating energy harvesting as the most viable solution for these nanosensor networks. Unfortunately, the rate at which energy can be harvested at the nanoscale may not be sufficient to simultaneously power all of the conventional device components, including the microprocessor, memory, sensor, and the communication radio. We propose a simplified architecture for energy-harvesting nanosensor networks that uses the energy signatures of monitored events for efficient event recognition at the sink. Using the instantaneous harvested energy to transmit a short pulse of proportional amplitude, the proposed architecture obviates the need for several conventional sensor node elements, including the microprocessor, memory, and sensor. In this article, we validate the feasibility of the architecture using a novel application of nanosensor networks for microscopic monitoring of chemical reactors, and we demonstrate that different types of reactions can be detected accurately at a remote sink.