A Survey on Energy Efficient Wireless Sensor Networks for Bicycle Performance Monitoring Application

Abstract

Wireless sensor networks (WSNs) have greatly advanced in the past few decades and are now widely used, especially for remote monitoring; the list of potential uses seems endless. Three types of wireless sensor technologies (Bluetooth, ZigBee, and ANT) have been used to monitor the biomechanical and physiological activities of bicycles and cyclists, respectively. However, the wireless monitoring of these activities has faced some challenges. The aim of this paper is to highlight various methodologies for monitoring cycling to provide an effective and efficient way to overcome the various challenges and limitations of sports cycling using wireless sensor interfaces. Several design criteria were reviewed and compared with different solutions for the implementation of current WSN research, such as low power consumption, long distance communications, small size, and light weight. Conclusions were drawn after observing the example of an advanced and adaptive network technology (ANT) network highlighting reduced power consumption and prolonged battery life. The power saving achieved in the slave node was 88–95% compared to the similar ANT protocol used in the medical rehabilitation.