An autonomous 16 mm/sup 3/ solar-powered node for distributed wireless sensor networks

Abstract

A 16 mm/sup 3/ autonomous solar-powered sensor node with bidirectional optical communication for distributed sensor networks has been demonstrated. The device digitizes integrated sensor signals and transmits/receives data over a free-space optical link. The system consists of three die - a 0.25 /spl mu/m CMOS ASIC, a 2.6 mm/sup 2/ SOI solar cell array, and a micromachined four-quadrant corner-cube retroreflector (CCR), allowing it to be used in a one-to-many network configuration. The CMOS ASIC includes a photosensor integrated 3 MHz oscillator, 69 pJ/bit optical receiver and 31 pJ/sample ADC.