Energy Harvesting Alternatives for Powering Critical WSN Based and Autonomous Monitoring Systems

Wireless Sensor Network WSN applications in the industry, domestic and commercial sectors are becoming quite interesting and exciting. For instance, since January 2005, major International Oil and Gas companies IOCs operating in Nigeria Niger Delta region have made wireless sensor network the defacto monitoring system for their vast oil and gas pipelines, oil wells and other facilities. This is because wireless technology has vast advantages over their wired counterpart. Despite the interest generated by the varied advantage of wireless sensor nodes in the oil and gas industry and other sectors, the biggest challenge lie in the limited battery energy of these tiny wireless sensor nodes. Battery energy of the wireless sensors are so limited that it will take maximum of one year to deplete and that will require massive replacements of the batteries so that the network will still be functional. This is almost impossible or very costly for a field of thousands or millions of wireless sensor nodes. This paper will examine the possibility of harvesting ambient or environmental energy sources such as RF, solar, piezoelectric, thermal etc to store and power these wireless sensor nodes so that the need for massive battery replacements will be avoided and costs saved. Fidelis C. Obodoeze | Ndidi Fidelia Ugwoke | Edith Angela Ugwu "Energy Harvesting Alternatives for Powering Critical WSN-Based and Autonomous Monitoring Systems" Published in International Journal of Trend in Scientific Research and Development (ijtsrd), ISSN: 2456-6470, Volume-3 | Issue-6 , October 2019, URL: https://www.ijtsrd.com/papers/ijtsrd29131.pd