A Wireless Condition Monitoring System Powered by a Sub-100 $\mu$W Vibration Energy Harvester

Abstract

A wireless sensor network for condition monitoring and its corresponding sensor node powered by a vibration energy harvester producing about 100 μW are presented. The sensor network utilizes an asynchronous beacon-detection based duty cycle control architecture to reduce power consumption and support ID-based TDMA while avoiding the need for timing synchronization between nodes. It also provides FDMA and fixed-time slot TDMA for further network flexibility. The sensor node transceiver includes a duty-cycle timing control unit to minimize power consumption; an LO-less, TDMA-capable, addressable beacon receiver; an FDMA-capable transmitter; and a low-power, universal sensor interface. The proposed sensor node, implemented in 0.13- μm CMOS technology, achieves low power consumption and a high degree of flexibility without requiring calibration or the use of BAW or SAW filters. The sensor node is experimentally demonstrated to operate autonomously from the power provided by a piezoelectric vibration energy harvester with dimensions of 27 × 23 × 6.5 mm <sup xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">3</sup> excited by 4.5-m/s <sup xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">2</sup> acceleration at 40.8 Hz. The WSN condition monitoring behavior is measured with a capacitive temperature sensor, and achieves an effective temperature resolution of 0.36 °C.