Plug-and-Play Power Resources and Agent-Based Coordination for Energy-Aware Wireless Sensor Nodes

A major constraint of sensor network deployments is their power supply: batteries have a limited lifetime and must be replaced when depleted. Recent advances in the field of energy harvesting mean that sensor nodes can now be powered by environmental energy such as light, vibration, or temperature differences; however, the variety of environments that sensor nodes are deployed into, and their varying levels of power consumption which is dependent on their operation, dictates the type of power supply which must be fitted to the node. This demonstration includes the work done at the University of Southampton in developing a plug-and-play energy architecture for sensor nodes that can accommodate a range of power sources and stores, and agent-based coordination which allows sensor nodes to negotiate between one another to allocate sensing tasks. These capabilities allow the sensor node to be energy-aware, with a flexible energy subsystem, to make best use of their available power. The demonstration is presented in two parts: (i) a plugand-play energy architecture which is used to power a wireless sensor node, and (ii) a decentralized negotiation algorithm that is deployed on resource-constrained sensor nodes.