Low Power Consumption Wireless Sensor Communication System Integrated with an Energy Harvesting Power Source

This paper presents the testing results of a wireless sensor communication system with low power consumption integrated with an energy harvesting power source. The experiments focus on the system's capability to perform continuous monitoring and to wirelessly transmit the data acquired from the sensors to a user base station, for realization of completely battery-free wireless sensor system. Energy harvesting technologies together with system design optimization for power consumption minimization ensure the system's energy autonomous capability demonstrated in this paper by presenting the promising testing results achieved following its integration with structural health monitoring and body area network applications. © 2013 IFSA.We would like to thank DSTL (Defence Science and Technology Laboratory in the UK), IMRC (Cranfield’s Innovative Manufacturing Research Centre) and EPSRC (the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council in the UK) for providing the research premises by funding these investigations