Wired-Wireless Hierarchical Sensor Network using Zero power Sensor Node

Abstract

Abstract The wireless sensor network, WSN, is a promising technology to make our social life better. However, the maintenance of the battery attached to each sensor node avoids WSN widely be used. The zero standby-power sensor node (ZSSN) extends battery life by eliminating standby power, but they impose high cost and maintenance burdens because each node has its own battery and wireless module. This paper proposes a wired-wireless hierarchical sensor network consisting of a small network group of ZPSNs (Zero power sensor node) with large capacitor as power supply that are wired together, and the parent node has a wireless module and an energy harvester. The proposed WSN can suppress the number of energy harvesters and wireless modules to that of groups. There are no batteries by replaced to the capacitors. That is, our WSN can reduce the maintenance and cost caused by which there is no battery, and each only parent node has wireless module and energy harvester. The experimental result shows that the standby ZPSN can keep enough voltage 48 days on the large capacitor to operate in active mode correctly.