Perpetual Sensor Nodes for Sustainable Wireless Network Applications

A special issue of Technologies (ISSN 2227-7080). This special issue belongs to the section "Information and Communication Technologies".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 30 September 2024 | Viewed by 8499

Special Issue Editors

Faculty of Mathematics, Autonomous University of Yucatan, Anillo Periférico Norte, Tablaje Cat., Mérida 13615, Yuc., Mexico
Interests: energy harvesting; power management; Internet of Things; wireless sensor networks
Department of Mechatronics, Autonomous University of Yucatan, Av. Industrias No Contaminantes s/n, Cordemex, Merida 97203, Yuc., Mexico
Interests: intelligent signal processing; wireless sensor networks; Internet of Things; power management; smart materials; composite materials
Deparment of Engineering, University of Quintana Roo, Chetumal 77019, QR, Mexico
Interests: electronic design; energy harvesting systems; wireless sensor networks

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Over the last few years, there has been an increasing interest in the development of wireless sensor networks (WSNs) for a variety of applications, such as structural health monitoring, smart homes and buildings, agriculture and environmental monitoring, among others. However, the widespread adoption of WSN technology has been limited partly due to sustainability and maintenance cost concerns. One important concern is the need of eventually performing battery replacement for tens or even hundreds of sensing devices scattered over a large-area field. Therefore, there is a necessity to explore different approaches for the extension of battery life in sensor nodes. This Technologies Special Issue is focused on addressing energy harvesting, energy conservation, and wireless power transfer approaches to the development of sustainable and cost-effective wireless sensor nodes. Potential topics include (but are not limited to) ultra-low-power hardware architectures and communication protocols for sensor nodes, wireless-power-transfer-enabled sensor nodes, novel energy harvesting transducers, energy harvesting circuits for sensor nodes, predictive energy harvesting techniques, energy-saving and energy-aware battery management techniques, and low-power machine learning algorithms for wireless networks.

Dr. Johan Jair Estrada-López
Prof. Dr. Alejandro A. Castillo Atoche
Dr. Javier Vázquez-Castillo
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

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Keywords

  • energy harvesting
  • wireless sensors
  • battery-management
  • low-power communications
  • machine learning

Published Papers (5 papers)

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Research

14 pages, 6383 KiB  
Article
Implementation of a Wireless Sensor Network for Environmental Measurements
by Rosa M. Woo-García, José M. Pérez-Vista, Adrián Sánchez-Vidal, Agustín L. Herrera-May, Edith Osorio-de-la-Rosa, Felipe Caballero-Briones and Francisco López-Huerta
Technologies 2024, 12(3), 41; https://doi.org/10.3390/technologies12030041 - 16 Mar 2024
Viewed by 630
Abstract
Nowadays, the need to monitor different physical variables is constantly increasing and can be used in different applications, from humidity monitoring to disease detection in living beings, using a local or wireless sensor network (WSN). The Internet of Things has become a valuable [...] Read more.
Nowadays, the need to monitor different physical variables is constantly increasing and can be used in different applications, from humidity monitoring to disease detection in living beings, using a local or wireless sensor network (WSN). The Internet of Things has become a valuable approach to climate monitoring, daily parcel monitoring, early disease detection, crop plant counting, and risk assessment. Herein, an autonomous energy wireless sensor network for monitoring environmental variables is proposed. The network’s tree topology configuration, which involves master and slave modules, is managed by microcontrollers embedded with sensors, constituting a key part of the WSN architecture. The system’s slave modules are equipped with sensors for temperature, humidity, gas, and light detection, along with a photovoltaic cell to energize the system, and a WiFi module for data transmission. The receiver incorporates a user interface and the necessary computing components for efficient data handling. In an open-field configuration, the transceiver range of the proposed system reaches up to 750 m per module. The advantages of this approach are its scalability, energy efficiency, and the system’s ability to provide real-time environmental monitoring over a large area, which is particularly beneficial for applications in precision agriculture and environmental management. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Perpetual Sensor Nodes for Sustainable Wireless Network Applications)
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14 pages, 809 KiB  
Article
AI-Enabled Compressive Spectrum Classification for Wideband Radios
by Tassadaq Nawaz and Ramasamy Srinivasaga Naidu
Technologies 2023, 11(6), 182; https://doi.org/10.3390/technologies11060182 - 13 Dec 2023
Viewed by 1462
Abstract
Cognitive radio is a promising technology that emerged as a potential solution to the spectrum shortage problem by enabling opportunistic spectrum access. In many cases, cognitive radios are required to sense a wide range of frequencies to locate the spectrum white spaces; hence, [...] Read more.
Cognitive radio is a promising technology that emerged as a potential solution to the spectrum shortage problem by enabling opportunistic spectrum access. In many cases, cognitive radios are required to sense a wide range of frequencies to locate the spectrum white spaces; hence, wideband spectrum comes into play, which is also an essential step in future wireless systems to boost the throughput. Cognitive radios are intelligent devices and therefore can be opted for the development of modern jamming and anti-jamming solutions. To this end, our article introduces a novel AI-enabled energy-efficient and robust technique for wideband radio spectrum characterization. Our work considers a wideband radio spectrum made up of numerous narrowband signals, which could be normal communications or signals disrupted by a stealthy jammer. First, the receiver recovers the wideband from significantly low sub-Nyquist rate samples by exploiting compressive sensing technique to decrease the overhead caused by the high complexity analog-to-digital conversion process. Once the wideband is recovered, each available narrowband signal is given to a cyclostationary feature detector that computes the corresponding spectral correlation function and extracts the feature vectors in the form of cycle and frequency profiles. Then profiles are concatenated and given as input features set to an artificial neural network which in turn classifies each NB signal as legitimate communication with a specific modulation or disrupted by a stealthy jammer. The results show a classification accuracy of about 0.99 is achieved. Moreover, the algorithm highlights significantly high performances in comparison to recently reported spectrum classification techniques. The proposed technique can be used to design anti-jamming systems for military communication systems. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Perpetual Sensor Nodes for Sustainable Wireless Network Applications)
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20 pages, 9046 KiB  
Article
Enhancing Performance of Millimeter Wave MIMO Antenna with a Decoupling and Common Defected Ground Approach
by Poonam Tiwari, Vishant Gahlaut, Meenu Kaushik, Anshuman Shastri, Vivek Arya, Issa Elfergani, Chemseddine Zebiri and Jonathan Rodriguez
Technologies 2023, 11(5), 142; https://doi.org/10.3390/technologies11050142 - 16 Oct 2023
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 1884
Abstract
An approach is presented to enhance the isolation of a two-port Multiple Input Multiple Output (MIMO) antenna using a decoupling structure and a common defected ground structure (DGS) that physically separates the antennas from each other. The antenna operates in the 24 to [...] Read more.
An approach is presented to enhance the isolation of a two-port Multiple Input Multiple Output (MIMO) antenna using a decoupling structure and a common defected ground structure (DGS) that physically separates the antennas from each other. The antenna operates in the 24 to 40 GHz frequency range. The innovation in the presented MIMO antenna design involves the novel integration of two arc-shaped symmetrical elements with dimensions of 35 × 35 × 1.6 mm3 placed perpendicular to each other. The benefits of employing an antenna with elements arranged perpendicularly are exemplified by the enhancement of its overall performance metrics. These elements incorporate a microstrip feed featuring a quarter-wave transformer (QWT). This concept synergizes with decoupling techniques and a defected ground structure to significantly enhance isolation in a millimeter wave (mm wave) MIMO antenna. These methods collectively achieve an impressively wide bandwidth. Efficient decoupling methodologies have been implemented, yielding a notable increase of 5 dB in isolation performance. The antenna exhibits 10 dB impedance matching, with a 15 GHz (46.87%) wide bandwidth, excellent isolation of more than 28 dB, and a desirable gain of 4.6 dB. Antennas have been analyzed to improve their performance in mm wave applications by evaluating diversity parameters such as envelope correlation coefficient (ECC) and diversity gain (DG), with achieved values of 0.0016 and 9.992 dB, respectively. The simulation is conducted using CST software. To validate the findings, experimental investigations have been conducted, affirming the accuracy of the simulations. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Perpetual Sensor Nodes for Sustainable Wireless Network Applications)
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17 pages, 7817 KiB  
Article
Miniaturized Compact Reconfigurable Half-Mode SIW Phase Shifter with PIN Diodes
by Franky Dakam Wappi, Bilel Mnasri, Alireza Ghayekhloo, Larbi Talbi and Halim Boutayeb
Technologies 2023, 11(3), 63; https://doi.org/10.3390/technologies11030063 - 23 Apr 2023
Viewed by 1911
Abstract
In this work, a novel electrically reconfigurable phase shifter based on a half-mode substrate integrated waveguide (HM-SIW) is proposed. SIW is a guided transmission line topology, and by using half-mode excitation, a smaller size can be achieved. Phase shifters are electronic devices that [...] Read more.
In this work, a novel electrically reconfigurable phase shifter based on a half-mode substrate integrated waveguide (HM-SIW) is proposed. SIW is a guided transmission line topology, and by using half-mode excitation, a smaller size can be achieved. Phase shifters are electronic devices that change the phase of transmission for a wide range of applications, including inverse scattering and sensing. The tunability of PIN diodes is applied here to achieve a reconfigurable design. The proposed single-layer structure does not require extra wiring layers for the bias circuit on the suggested printed circuit board. Its principle consists in the integration, in the HM-SIW, of three parallel lines, each connecting the edge of the HM-SIW and linked to a PIN diode and a radial stub. Here we present the results of measurements for a frequency band from 4.5 to 7 GHz that demonstrate how the experiment agrees with simulations. Insertion loss was less than −10 dB, and port coupling was less than −2 dB for both simulation and measurement solutions. The proposed half-mode structure is around half the size of a typical SIW line. With the proposed design, the seven states of the PIN diodes can be validated (ON and OFF), with a wide band adaptation and a relatively constant phase difference across a broad frequency range (44%). A key benefit of the proposed design for a microwave component is the reduction of extra biasing layers for the PIN diodes. This is in addition to the reduced size of the transmission line compared to a commercial SIW. In the annexed section, simulation software is used for a more comprehensive analysis involving more phase shift values and parametric studies. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Perpetual Sensor Nodes for Sustainable Wireless Network Applications)
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14 pages, 3940 KiB  
Article
Synthesis of Quadband mm-Wave Microstrip Antenna Using Genetic Algorithm for Wireless Application
by Arebu Dejen, Jeevani Jayasinghe, Murad Ridwan and Jaume Anguera
Technologies 2023, 11(1), 14; https://doi.org/10.3390/technologies11010014 - 16 Jan 2023
Cited by 7 | Viewed by 1673
Abstract
Antennas with multifunctional capabilities integrated into a single device that demonstrates a high performance are in demand, and microstrip antennas with quadband coverage are very useful for a wide range of mm-wave applications. Antennas and propagation at mm-wave frequencies, on the other hand, [...] Read more.
Antennas with multifunctional capabilities integrated into a single device that demonstrates a high performance are in demand, and microstrip antennas with quadband coverage are very useful for a wide range of mm-wave applications. Antennas and propagation at mm-wave frequencies, on the other hand, poses several challenges which can be overcome by applying performance enhancement techniques to meet design objectives. This article presents the use of a binary-coded genetic algorithm for developing an improved quadband mm-wave microstrip patch antenna. The patch shape was optimized by dividing a conducting surface into 6 × 6 tiny rectangular blocks. The algorithm generated the solution space by introducing conducting and nonconducting features for each radiating cell on the patch surface and then greedily searched for the best-fitted individual based on the cost function. With the combination of High-Frequency Structure Simulator (HFSS) and MATLAB, candidate antennas were iteratively modeled by applying the suggested algorithm. The optimized antenna resonated at four frequencies centered at 28.3 GHz, 38.1 GHz, 46.6 GHz, and 60.0 GHz. The antenna realized a peak broadside directivity of 7.8 dB, 8.8 dB, 7.3 dB, and 7.1 dB, respectively, with a total operating bandwidth of 11.5 GHz. The research findings were compared with related works presented in the literature and found that the optimized antenna outperformed them in terms of bandwidth, directivity, and efficiency. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Perpetual Sensor Nodes for Sustainable Wireless Network Applications)
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