Proceedings of the International Conference on Computer and Communication Engineering 2008 May 13-15, 2008 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Microcontroller Based Standalone PV system for Wireless Sensor Node

Md. Anwarul Azim1, 2, S. M. Ariful Huda2, Hafizal Mohammad1, Nowshad Amin3

1
Faculty of Engineering, Multimedia University (MMU), Cyberjaya 63100, Selangor, Malaysia
2
Dept. of CSE, Faculty of MS, International Islamic University Chittagong (IIUC), Bangladesh
3
Dept. of EESE, Faculty of Engineering, National University of Malaysia (UKM),
Bangi 43600, Selangor, Malaysia
Email (azimcse@gmail.com, smarifulhuda@gmail.com, hafizal@mmu.edu.my,
nowshad@eng.ukm.my)

Abstract environment; it should be efficiently integrated into an

This study integrates the photovoltaic panel power
monitoring, the charge controller as well as switching
options for remote monitoring applications of any
wireless sensor network. To increase the life time of a
sensor node, recharge cycle is optimized in such a way
that the battery is not charged randomly even though
sunlight is available on PV panel, rather it is charged
while discharge reaches to a certain predefined limit.
Thus, it increases the storage battery life time by
reducing the recharge cycle. Here, a powerful PIC
microcontroller is used for future enhancement of a
complete sensor node solution for environmental
monitoring application. However, cost-efficiency can
be obtained by selecting optimum hardware for
particular device of specific applications with the same
methodology described in this paper.
Keywords: Solar PV power supply, Charge controller,
Sensor node, microcontroller.
I. INTRODUCTION
Electrical power in many portable products is
supplied by batteries that can be recharged by
electricity from the mains. Due to costs, inconvenient
use and environmental concern, it would be useful to
find alternative ways to supply energy to products. The
main components of a solar PV power setup (solar
panel, battery and charge controller) are readily
available, and can be used to supply power for wireless
sensor nodes. However, current designs did not meet
our goals in terms of cost, ease-of-use, and remote
monitoring. Ideally, system design should have the
least components from an ease-of-use and integration
in cost standpoint. Solar harvesting technology
provides the ability to extract energy from the
embedded system to translate that harvested energy
into increased application performance and system
lifetime [1, 2]. The application space for wireless
sensor networks is dominated by the longevity
constraint, since the cost of physically deploying the
sensor nodes often outweighs the cost of the nodes
themselves. Energy is the limiting factor in achieving
extreme (months to years) system wide lifetime.
However, the design of a solar energy harvesting
module involves complex tradeoffs due to the
interaction of several factors, such as the
characteristics of the solar cells, chemistry and
capacity of the batteries used, power supply
requirements and power management features of the
embedded system. In outdoor settings, the most
accessible environmental energy source is solar. While
photovoltaic (PV) power systems are in widespread
use in many settings, the design of a PV system for
continuous operation of wireless sensor nodes presents
a number of unique challenges. It should be simple,
robust, and operate with no human intervention for
many years [3]. It is, therefore, essential to thoroughly
understand and judiciously exploit these factors in
order to maximize the energy efficiency of a solar
harvesting module. Duty cycle and power requirements
are low for sensor networks, but the load varies over
huge range–microwatts in standby and mW when
active. Many applications operate at low duty cycles in
unpredictable environments, so the system should
adapt to the available energy reserve. Finally, the
physical deterioration of the energy storage device is
generally the overall limiting factor of lifetime of the
device [5]. For example, rechargeable batteries have
about 300 to 500 recharge cycles, resulting in at most
one to two years of operation if charged daily. The key
design challenge is reducing the strain on storage
elements while preserving a simple hardware and

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software architecture. We discuss the design of an
intelligent system with lightweight and efficient
hardware combined with powerful software that
actively manages the power subsystem for continuous
operation. Since solar energy directly enters the
battery, it experiences recharge cycles daily placing
significant stress on the battery. This limits the
system’s lifetime to no more than two years. Such a
lifetime is not dramatically larger than that obtainable
with batteries alone and far from perpetual operation.
In this paper, we present a simple, low cost and mostly
digital design with minimal hardware components. The
microcontroller is programmed to intelligently control
the operation and easily customizable. The life time,
therefore, will hopefully be increased due to optimized
recharge cycle proposed and demonstrated in the
system.
II. SYSTEM ARCHITECTURE
The system functionality can be categorized into
charge controller and system monitoring. The charge
control aspect involves the solar power conversion,
sensing of panel and battery voltage, and battery
charging, while system monitoring aspect is concerned
with switching to different subsystem to increase the
lifetime of battery as well as sensor node. The system
has four major blocks, such as solar panel, battery,
microcontroller, switching and the load. Figure 1
shows the block diagram of the proposed PV module
for sensor node. Harvesting components, such as solar
panels, and energy storage elements, such as batteries
or ultra-capacitors, have different voltage-current
characteristics, which must be matched to each other as
well as the energy requirements of the system to
maximize harvesting efficiency. Furthermore, battery
non-idealities such as self-discharge and round trip
efficiency, directly affect the energy usage and storage
decisions.
Figure 1. Block diagram of proposed PV module
The solar panel has to supply enough power for the
load, consumption of the circuit, and to charge the
battery if it is empty [4, 6]. The solar panel needed to
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be small in size and the voltage needed greater than 6V
in order for the microcontroller able to sense the
voltage.
The charge controller should roughly double the
lifetime of the battery, by ensuring proper charging
and discharging technique. On the other hand, each
cell is 1.5V and it is certainly not recommended to
discharge an entire battery of cells because when the
battery is discharged below 0.8V per cell, one of the
cells is inevitably weaker than the others, and goes to
zero first. If the battery is further flattened, this battery
becomes charged in reverse, which again makes it still
weaker. During the recharging process, once batteries
reach their 100% charge, the cell starts to heat and the
internal pressure builds up, causing the battery to
eventually rupture or vent electrolyte. Thus the battery
deteriorates rapidly due to more and more
overcharging. The manufacturer suggests these cells
should be good for 500 to 1000 cycles if properly
treated. In this study, we demonstrate the solution of
this problem in such a way that not to charge the
battery randomly when panel voltage are available
rather the battery starts to charge when its discharge
reaches to a certain (e.g. user-defined) limit.
III. SYSTEM DESIGN
A microcontroller controls the operation of the
entire sensor node [4]. Here, PIC16F877A
microcontroller is used to control the sensor node. The
chips possess CMOS FLASH-based 8-bit
microcontroller packs Microchip's powerful PIC
architecture into a 40 pin package. It has wide
operating voltage range: 2.0V to 5.5V, 200
nanosecond instruction execution and 35 single word
instructions. The PIC power consumption is very low,
e.g. below 0.6 mA typical @ 3V, 4 MHz, and 20 μA
typical @ 3V, 32 kHz and < 1 μA of typical standby
current. The built-in ADC can be used to take the
analog input like panel or battery voltage and others
sensors for actual sensor node operation. The
controller takes power from the battery and talks to the
voltage and current sensing circuits to determine the
voltages and currents of the solar panel and the battery.
It will charge the battery from panel through switch
when required and connect the load when panel has
sufficient voltage. When panel does not produces any
voltage (usually at night), the controller connect
battery with the load to perform the operation until the
battery discharge reaches to a certain level.
The goal of this design is to provide continuous
power to a sensor node independent of a power grid.
This is accomplished by using solar power and a
rechargeable battery. The primary objectives are
compact and mostly digital design, efficient operation,
ability to monitor available battery charge status, and
to provide a regulated 5V output. The major benefit is
the use of the renewable solar energy to provide power
to a sensor or any portable device that require up to
50mW to 100mW of power consumption. In addition,
the battery can be used in lower sunlight conditions or
during nights to supply any loads. The available
battery charge could be monitored and the controller
goes into low power mode when little charge is
available.
A. Program flowchart Figure 4. Microcontroller view.
The program flowchart is shown in figure 2.

Figure 2. Program flowchart.

The program was developed using Eclipse Hi-Tide

C/C++ and generated hex file of the program code. A
snapshot of initialization code of charge process is
shown in figure 3. Finally, PIC simulator IDE is used
to download the hex file into the microcontroller to
realize the appropriate operations. Figure 4 shows the
microcontroller view in the simulation process.
Figure 3. A snapshot of initialization code.
B. Circuit design
The circuit diagram is shown in figure 5.
Figure 5. Circuit diagram.
C. Working principle
Panel voltage is directly related to sunlight. So it
can be fluctuating gradually, but PIC microcontroller
needs a constant voltage. Therefore, power is supplied
to PIC from battery. On the other hand if we provide
power to PIC from panel, we can use a voltage
regulator but it would be not efficient because it has an
internal power loss and it must have a certain voltage
difference between input and output.
Voltage monitoring (Panel and Battery): When
panel has available power, it charges capacitor (C1)
through a Scotty diode (SD1). This voltage is
continuously monitored by PIC through RA0/AN0. If
PIC gets sufficient voltage from VR1, then it compares
it with predefined reference voltage (Vr). If C1 has

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sufficient voltage then it allows the charger circuit to
turn on. The PIC also monitors the battery voltage (Bv)
via VR2 through RA1. The PIC only charges the
battery when the battery reaches its lower limit (should
be set for charging the battery) and C1 (i. e Panel) has
sufficient voltage. It charges the battery until the
battery reaches its upper limit (set by default).
Load control: Load gets supply from panel or
battery. When PIC gets sufficient voltage from C1 then
the load connects to panel via P-MOSFET switch
(Q1). Otherwise load connects to the battery via P-
MOSFET switch (Q3). When battery voltage reaches
to its predefined lower limit, then PIC automatically
disconnects the load. On the other hand, PIC is always
connected with the battery to avoid system down.
Switching: Three P-channels MOSFET (Q1, Q3,
Q5) are used to efficiently switch to different
subsystems of the power supply unit. Q1 and Q2
provide voltage to load. When panel voltage is
available then RD2 output pin of PIC goes high and
Q2 becomes active. In this way Q2 triggers Q1 and
load gets supply from panel via Q1 and diode (D1). If
there is no voltage available in solar panel then RD1
output pin of PIC goes high and Q4 and Q3 get
enabled. Thus load gets connected with the battery via
Q3 and D2.
Charge control: If battery discharges to its lower
limit at C1 then RD0 output pin of PIC goes low. Thus
Q6 becomes disabled, whereas Q5, Q7 become enable.
Then the battery recharges from lower limit to upper
limit through Q5, D3 and Rx. On the other hand, when
the battery becomes full charge, RD0 pin goes high
and prevent the battery for overcharge. In this way, we
avoid the battery to charge randomly when panel
voltage is available thus reduce recharge cycle. When
the system fails due to power failure then Q6 becomes
inactive because of no bias voltage at the base. After
getting sunlight, the system starts charging the battery
automatically through Q5, D3 and Rx as Q7 is still on
while Q6 is off.
Finally, a register (R3) is connected with a Zenner
diode (Z1), which provides a constant voltage for
reference (reference voltage may be taken from PIC
internal reference voltage register). Here, we use 6V
voltage regulator IC named LM7806. We need a 5V
supply for load but we use a 6V regulator, as we use a
diode OR gate to isolate two switches (Q1 and Q3) to
supply to the load. This diode has an internal loss of
0.7V, so it becomes 5.3V which is near to 5V.
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IV. CONCLUSIONS
Solar-powered sensor node could be deployed in
outdoor environments where it would be difficult or
impossible to change batteries but long-term operation
is required. The main design specifications were to
achieve the ability to provide 30-50mW continuously
to the sensor node. The system is accomplished
cheaply using off-the-shelf parts and existing
electronics are power-efficient enough to built low
power consuming devices. Even though efficiency of
the overall design has not been specified, we have
verified the efficiency on individual components and
that the internal circuit does not consume much of the
power from the solar panel. The circuit provides
necessary power output at 5V as well as monitored the
battery charge constantly for the purpose of internal
control. The design of six solar panels in series
provided enough power for the load and internal
circuit consumption as well as was able to charge the
battery when it was more or less discharged. The
software to control the charging process as well as
other operation is small and simple enough to fit into
an inexpensive microcontroller as shown in this study.
Finally, at a very unlike case, if the battery runs out,
the system proves to be able to go into a stand-by
mode as an important feature.
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