Received: 31 January 2020 Revised: 14 June 2020 Accepted: 14 August 2020

DOI: 10.1002/cpe.5997

SPECIAL ISSUE PAPER

Judicious data management for sustaining an energy

harvesting sensor node

Kaumudi Singh Pratyush Shukla Sachin S. M. Nithish K. Gnani Prabhakar T. V.

Joy Kuri

Department of Electronic Systems Engineering,

Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru, India
Correspondence
Kaumudi Singh, Department of Electronic
Systems Engineering, Indian Institute of
Science, Bengaluru, Karnataka, India.
Email: kaumudi@iisc.ac.in
Summary
Perpetual lifetimes and low maintenance are few of the attractive aspects of sensor
nodes that harvest ambient energy. However, their operation depends heavily on the
energy profiles of their harvesting source(s). In this work, we study the suitability of
energy harvesting sensor (EHS) Nodes, powered using indoor lighting and vibrations,
for a simple temperature monitoring application. To help these nodes sustain, we have
proposed schemes that allow the nodes to sample and transmit data judiciously. Along
with an adaptive sampling based on autoregressive (AR) model, we have proposed a
regulating function based transmission scheme that regulates the amount of transmit-
ted data based on the energy available at the node and the characteristics of the data
so that even with limited transmissions the fidelity of the data is not lost. With the help
of thorough evaluations, we can conclude that an EHS node fares quite well. Results
show that adaptive sampling and transmissions based on regulating function not only
save energy at the sensor nodes, but they also reduce the amount of data generated
and accumulated in a network.

KEYWORDS
autoregressive models, data sampling, data transmission, energy harvesting sensor node

1 INTRODUCTION

The Internet of Things (IoT) is estimated to grow into a network of 21 billion interconnected devices by the year 2020.1 Seamless operation of these
networks can be ensured when lifetimes of the interconnected devices are enhanced. Advances in low power hardware and software technologies
indicate that lifetime expectancy of battery powered sensor nodes can be extended over 10 years. Renesas Electronic Corporation has developed
a proprietary SOTBTM process technology2 and has demonstrated that the SOTBTM embedded controller3 can be powered using energy harvested
from vibrations, light, and thermoelectric module. A node that harvests energy from its ambience, that is, energy harvesting sensor (EHS) node
can essentially function forever4 and eliminates the daunting task of battery replacement. However, a major challenge for such a node is that the
harvesting source may always not be available and can affect its participation in the network. To deal with this issue, an energy storage device should
be used for storing the harvested energy and an appropriate energy management scheme5 should be employed. Likewise, a node can harvest energy
from multiple sources and can switch between sources as per their availability. The node in the latter case can effectively support longer duty cycles6
and hence is better equipped to meet its application requirements. Therefore, in this work, we have built a multisource energy harvesting node for
environmental condition monitoring.
An environmental monitoring network, such as one for heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) applications has plenty of sensor nodes
that periodically monitor environment parameters and convey their measurements reliably to a data aggregator. While this is an example of periodic
monitoring with high data fidelity, the energy incurred in data collection and transmission can be significant and may reduce the lifetime of these

Concurrency Computat Pract Exper. 2020;e5997. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/cpe © 2020 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. 1 of 13
https://doi.org/10.1002/cpe.5997
2 of 13 SINGH ET AL.

nodes irrespective of the manner they are powered. For instance, periodic monitoring by hundreds of sensors with a fixed resolution of 24 bits can
generate an overwhelming amount of data.7 Using a fixed sampling rate and resolution has its consequences in terms of the energy spent during
sensing as well as in terms of memory required to store the sensed data. Transmitting all the sampled data will lead to huge energy cost and heavy
traffic in the network. Accordingly, large memory will also be required at the data aggregator to store data from multiple nodes. So far, in the context
of EHS nodes, the researchers have addressed issues related to conservation of energy and its management, and design of ultra-low power hardware.
Existing schemes are restricted to energy management. We, on the other hand, wish to combine energy and data management to explore if we can
spend less energy without significantly affecting data quality while sampling and transmission.
To investigate these issues, we build a multisource energy harvesting node for indoor temperature monitoring. The node harvests energy from
indoor lighting and vibrations, samples the temperature, and transmits the sampled value to a data aggregator. Assume that the sensor node stores
the harvested energy in a 15 mF supercapacitor and it has been completely charged before the node starts monitoring the temperature. Let us con-
sider a trivial case where every sampled data is transmitted. Our measurements reveal that a node is able to sample only 322 12-bit samples, which
takes about 64.4 seconds, before its energy is replenished. We can extend the monitoring by either lowering the sampling rate or restricting the data
transmissions. However, if details of an application’s critical monitoring requirements are provided, we could devise intelligent data management
schemes. Our data management scheme is a comprehensive one that considers: (a) an AR model for adaptive data sampling and predicting future
energy requirement, and (b) a regulating function for data transmission. We show that our “judicious data management scheme” outperforms all
known schemes for EHS nodes.
After the data have been sampled, we propose that instead of transmitting every sampled value, we transmit a subset of samples. Transmit-
ting data periodically is a fairly simple manner of transmission. This transmits the most recent sampled value and drops all the samples that were
collected between two transmissions. One can also prioritize the data and then fix different transmission rates for different priority data samples.
These schemes are evaluated in Section 8.3 where we observe that though we have limited transmissions, the variations in the data are not tracked
effectively resulting in poor reconstruction. Neither energy available at the node nor variations in the sampled data have been considered in these
two transmission schemes. Therefore, we have devised a regulating function based transmission approach that adjusts the amount of data to be
transmitted based on the energy available at the node and data characteristics, viz., variations in data and data priority. The main aim of the reg-
ulating function is to select an appropriate data subset for transmissions such that the reconstruction is not poor and fidelity is maintained at the
aggregator.
The main contributions of this article can be enumerated as follows:

1. Implementation and evaluation of a sensor node that harvests energy from light and vibrations. The node monitors indoor temperature and
communicates the sampled values to a grid-connected aggregator.
2. An AR model based adaptive sampling algorithm that switches to different sampling rates and resolutions depending on the energy available at
the node and the variations in temperature.
3. A regulating function for data transmission that balances the amount of transmitted data and the reconstruction error at the aggregator based
on the node’s energy and the data characteristics.
4. Experimental evaluation of the proposed sampling and transmission schemes demonstrating improved data and energy management for an EHS
node.

The rest of this article is organized as follows: Section 2 describes the research works conducted in the field of energy and data management in
networks with EHS nodes. Section 3 gives an overview of the temperature monitoring application. Section 4 gives the details of network and sensor
node architecture. Energy characteristics of the system are discussed in Section 5. Section 6 discusses the proposed adaptive sampling algorithm.
Section 7 introduces the proposed regulating function based data transmission. Evaluation results are presented in Section 8 and are discussed in
Section 9. Section 10 concludes this article.

2 RELATED WORKS

A variety of ambient sources8 can be employed to power an EHS node. Nodes can also be powered by simultaneously harvesting from multiple
energy sources.6 Since multiharvester systems are generally immune to fluctuations in energy sources, our implemented system harvests solar and
vibrational energy.9 EHS nodes utilize storage buffers such as supercapacitors to operate when the harvesting source(s) are unavailable. Therefore,
the minimum size of storage required must be estimated such that maximum QoS is achieved in the network along with energy neutral operation.10
This is accomplished with energy aware power management modules.11
There are various categories of techniques to prolong the lifetimes of EHS nodes. The first category controls the nodes’ duty cycles to man-
age their energy. Fuzzy logic based adaptive duty cycling12 varies the duty cycle of a node based on its current residual energy and the predicted
trends for future residual and harvested energies. The second category controls the transmission power to efficiently utilize the harvested energy.
SINGH ET AL. 3 of 13

F I G U R E 1 Dividing the entire temperature range into various subranges. The

subranges closer to the boundaries of the temperature range have higher priority,
sampling rate, and resolution

Transmission range can depend on the energy available at the node.13 Nodes can either transmit a packet to its destination or utilize the services
of a relay network depending upon the channel quality.14 However, varying transmission power to manipulate the transmission range might affect
SNR of the data packets. Few techniques exploit the low power modes of the microcontroller and the radio. Recently, energy managers have been
designed based on reinforcement learning to maintain the node’s QoS by monitoring the state-of-charge of the energy storage device.15 Another
category of techniques explores the impact of implementing data processing algorithms on the EHS nodes’ lifetimes. Data compression16 and error
correction code17 have been investigated. The study shows that reducing the data packet size before transmission improves the nodes’ lifetimes as
the energy consumed while processing data is significantly less than the energy required while transmission. Few researchers have explored data
censoring, which has till date been applied in opportunistic communication where a node can decide locally about the transmissions that it wishes
to withhold based on either the statistical distribution of the sampled data18 or the energy available at the node.19
To the best of our knowledge, benefits of different techniques have not been combined in an effective manner. In this work, we combine the
merits of data compression and data censoring while sampling and transmitting the data. Here, instead of sampling a large amount of data and then
compressing it, we have employed an AR model based adaptive sampling algorithm wherein the sampling rate as well as the resolution is varied
according to the variations observed in the data. AR based adaptive sampling reduces the amount of sampled data and has a simpler implementa-
tion as compared to compression algorithms. Additionally, the power required for sampling is reduced.9 Extending this, we implement a regulating
function based transmission scheme where we refrain from transmitting every single sampled value and the amount of transmission is not only gov-
erned by the energy available at the node but also the characteristics of data being sampled, viz., rate of change of data and data priority. Our goal
is to ensure that data reconstruction has the lowest possible error. We, thus, overcome almost all drawbacks of existing techniques. Our regulating
function considers a variety of factors while transmitting the data as opposed to taking either only the node’s energy or only the data distribution
into consideration. Combining adaptive sampling and regulating function based transmission, allows us to judiciously utilize the energy available at
the node and manage the data generated in the network.

3 APPLICATION OVERVIEW

As mentioned in Section 1, we aim to show that energy harvesting nodes can sustain themselves when aided with the benefits and effectiveness
of adaptive sampling and transmissions based on regulating function. To demonstrate this, we take up an application which checks whether the
temperature is within 20◦ C-35◦ C range. Accurate sampling should be done when the temperature is closer to the boundaries of this range. At other
times, collected samples can be less accurate. This motivates us to change the sampling rate and resolution based on the temperature variations.
Therefore, the ADC sampling resolution associated with subranges closer to the boundaries is higher than that used in subranges away from the
boundaries (Figure 1). Depending on the temperature subrange and the rate of change of temperature, the nodes switch to different sampling rates
and resolutions. Once the temperature is sampled, samples should be transmitted to a data aggregator. The subranges of the temperature used to
decide the sampling resolution have also been used to assign priority to the sampled data (Figure 1). Transmission of packets can now depend on a
regulating function that takes variations in the sampled data, their priorities and the energy available with the node into consideration. However,
the function should not impair the fidelity of the data collected at the aggregator.

4 NETWORK ARCHITECTURE

In this work, we consider a network of two nodes (Figure 2). One is a temperature sensing node powered using harvested energy. The other node
is a grid connected aggregator to which the sensor node transmits its data. Even though this model considers only one sensor node, it can be easily
extended to accommodate multiple nodes.
The wireless sensor node platform uses the CC2530 system-on-chip solution with an in-built temperature sensor from Texas Instruments.20
Conversion time, sampling interval, and energy spent while using the different supported ADC resolution levels are given in Table 1. The node is
powered using a combination of photovoltaic panels and vibrational energy harvester. Figure 3 shows the architecture of the sensor node. Flexible,
4 of 13 SINGH ET AL.

FIGURE 2 Network architecture showing an energy harvesting sensor node that transmits sampled values to a grid-connected sink

TA B L E 1 Comparison of
ADC resolution Sampling interval (ms) Conversion time (μs) Energy consumed (μJ)
conversion time and energy
7 800 20 0.072 consumption for different ADC bit
resolution along with the associated
9 600 36 0.129
sampling intervals
10 400 68 0.2448

12 200 132 0.4752

FIGURE 3 Block diagram depicting the sensor node being powered using energy harvested from light and vibrations

light-weight photovoltaic panels from PowerFilm Solar Inc. of dimensions 60 mm × 70 mm and rated for a peak power of 66 mW (100,000 lux or
higher),21 have been used. Their output is given to LTC3105, which is a Step-Up DC-DC converter with maximum power point control.22 The out-
put of PPA-1014 energy harvesting module,23 a piezo transducer and energy harvester with dimensions of 53 mm × 20.8 mm × 0.74 mm, is given to
LTC3588, which is a nanopower energy harvesting power supply.24 The outputs from the power conditioning blocks LTC3105 and LTC3588 is then
given to LTC4419,25 which is a dual input power prioritizer. It assigns priorities to the sources and switches between them according to the switching
rule shown in Figure 3. The output from this prioritizer is then connected to a BestCap 15 mF supercapacitor26 which powers the node.

5 ENERGY CHARACTERIZATION

5.1 Energy characteristics of the harvesters

Table 2 tabulates the DC voltage and current generated by a photovoltaic panel of dimensions 60 mm × 70 mm with varying light intensity. Inside
a regular office environment, the average light intensity will be around 200-220 lux and hence these values of light intensity have been used for
further experiments. In order to get the maximum output from the vibrational harvester, appropriate tipping mass should be used. The tipping mass,
mt , is calculated using Equation (1)23 :

k
mt = −m (1)
(2𝜋 f)2
SINGH ET AL. 5 of 13

TA B L E 2 Energy characterization of photovoltaic panel

Light intensity (lux) Voltage (V) Current (mA) Light intensity (lux) Voltage (V) Current (mA)

20 0.29 0.0086 420 2.76 0.2

120 1.2 0.04 520 2.85 0.22

220 2.16 0.12 620 2.95 0.25

320 2.63 0.16 720 3.1 0.29

TA B L E 3 Energy generated by the vibrational

Tipping mass (g) Voltage (V pp ) Tipping mass (g) Voltage (V pp )
harvester with different tipping masses
0 0.720 25.9 18

7.5 4.96 31.8 30.4

13.6 5.48 36.1 47.2

19.9 9.84 44.1 34

TA B L E 4 Operation zones for sensor nodes

Operation zones Voltage levels (V) Energy levels (mJ)

High 3.1-33 72.07-81.67

Adaptive 2.7-3.1 54.67-72.07

Stop <2.5 <46.87

where k and m are the effective stiffness and mass of the harvester, respectively and f is the natural frequency. Depending on the clamping position
used, the value of k and m varies. We have used clamp position-6 and accordingly we have k = 898.54N/m and m = 0.336 g.23 With these values, we
get a tipping mass of 36.08 g at a vibrational frequency of 25 Hz. Table 3 tabulates the voltages generated by the harvester at 25 Hz when the tipping
mass is varied. We can note that the highest peak-to-peak voltage is generated when a tipping mass of 36.1 g is used.

5.2 Energy model for the sensor node

Depending upon the available energy, the operation of the sensor node is divided into different zones, viz., High, Adaptive, and Stop. Node operations
are allowed only in the zones High and Adaptive and the node goes into low power mode in the zone Stop. The energy and voltage levels for these
operation zones are given in Table 4. The sensor node remains in the low power Stop zone as long as the supercapacitor voltage is below 2.5 V.
Once the voltage reaches 2.5 V, the node powers on and initializes all the required peripherals. However, data collection and data transmissions are
allowed only when the voltage reaches 2.7 V. Further, until the voltage reaches 3.1 V, the node functions in the Adaptive zone. After 3.1 V, the node
functions in the High operation zone. As seen from Table 1, sampling a single, 12-bit value requires 0.4752 μJ. In contrast, transmitting a 14-bytes
packet containing this sampled data requires an energy of 83.16 μJ. We can, therefore, infer that transmitting data can cost 175 times more energy
than sampling the data. Hence, the node does not sample data unless it has adequate energy for transmissions.

6 ADAPTIVE SAMPLING

As the ambient sources may not be available at all times, the harvested energy available in the supercapacitor, at any given time instant, should
be judiciously used to sustain the node. Therefore, we introduce adaptive sampling based on an autoregressive (AR) model which aims to conserve
energy while sensing temperature and reduce collection of redundant data. AR models are used for predicting future values of a time series based
on past values by utilizing the existing correlation between the consecutive values. In our work, it has been used to predict the future value of the
temperature depending on the past sampled values. To train the AR model, temperature variations are captured for an extended period to create
a master data-set consisting of 1896 data points. The AR model is then tested on a data set containing 1200 data points. The obtained third order
(p = 3) AR model with a sum of squared errors (SSE) of 0.0174 is given in Equation (2).

̂t = 0.0173 + 0.9040Tt−1 + 0.1333Tt−2 − 0.0576Tt−3

T (2)
6 of 13 SINGH ET AL.

Operation zone High allows the node to sample the temperature at the highest sampling rate and resolution. In Adaptive zone, the sampling
resolution and rate are set adaptively. The sampling rate (RADCs ) depends on the slope and standard deviation of the temperature variations over
time.9 The sampling resolution depends on the subrange of temperature being monitored. The implemented AR model helps predict the next value
of the temperature and hence helps choose a suitable sampling resolution for the next sample.

7 REGULATING FUNCTION BASED TRANSMISSION

Once the data have been collected, transmitting all the sampled values ensures the fidelity of the data at the aggregator’s end. However, data com-
munication requires more energy than data collection (Section 5.2). Therefore, it becomes imperative that the transmissions should be performed
rationally.
Periodic transmissions and priority based transmissions (Section 1) do not consider the energy available at the node when deciding upon the
amount of data to be transmitted. This may lead to frequent transmissions even when the nodes are low on energy. Therefore, the energy available
at the node must be considered when deciding which data samples to transmit. Besides energy, rate of variation of the data samples should also
be a deciding factor. If the data are not changing rapidly, then it will suffice to transmit only a limited number of samples and likewise we can have
frequent data transmissions if the data varies swiftly. Data priority can also be introduced as another factor where we can transmit more packets
of high priority than low priority packets. However, to reduce the reconstruction error more data samples are required. Similarly, with sparse data
transmission, error in the reconstructed data increases. This can be seen from Figure 8 which shows that the curve for error versus fraction of data
transmitted monotonically decreases. Therefore, we have formulated a regulating function based transmission scheme that incorporates the node’s
energy, the rate of change and the priority of the sampled data while deciding which data samples should be transmitted. The formulation should
provide us with a solution that strikes a balance between the amount of transmitted data and the error observed during reconstruction with regards
to the following rules:

1. The amount of data transmission must always be within an energy budget. Hence, if only x transmissions can be performed with the energy
available at the node, the suggested number of transmissions must be strictly less than x.
2. Within the energy budget, the amount of transmissions will depend on the rate of change of data and their priority. When the rate of change
is constant, more high priority samples should be transmitted than low priority samples. For a constant data priority, more samples should be
transmitted when the data is rapidly changing.

A simple, linear regulating function, Rlinear , which combines all the factors can be formulated as

( ) ( )
E+S+P E + S + P Errthreshold
Rlinear = 1− TR + (3)
3 3 Errmax

Dtransmitted
where TR is the transmission ratio and is given by TR = Dtotal
, Dtransmitted is the number of data samples that are transmitted, Dtotal is the total number
of data samples, Errthreshold is the threshold error allowed while reconstruction. Errmax is the largest observed difference between any two consecutive
data samples in a batch. Errthreshold can take any value in the range [0, Errmax ]. The coefficient E captures the energy available at the node, S captures
the rate of change of the sampled values and P captures the priorities of the samples and takes on values as shown in Figure 1. Coefficients E and S
can be calculated as

Energy available at the node

E= (4)
Maximum energy capacity of the node

Current rate of change

S= (5)
Largest observed rate of change

Once the data sampling begins, we divide the data into batches of fixed size. Before processing a batch, energy available with the node is exam-
ined and then the coefficients, viz., E, S, and P are calculated. For every batch, we find the rate of change of data and the most dominant data priority.
The largest rate of change observed over all samples processed so far is recorded and is updated only when a larger rate of change is observed.
Next, given a batch of data samples, we estimate the subset of data samples that can be transmitted without impacting the data fidelity at the
aggregator based on linear curve fitting and interpolation. First, Errthreshold ∈ [0, Errmax ] is fixed. Next we consider data sample Di suggested by the reg-
ulating function for transmission. We then fit a straight line between Di and Di + 2 . This fit will give us an interpolated value, D′i+1 of the actual data Di + 1 .
If we find that |Di+1 − D′i+1 | < Errthreshold , then we disregard the sample Di + 1 . Moving forward, we try to fit a straight line between Di and Di + 3 and check
|Di+1 −D′i+1 |+|Di+2 −D′i+2 | |Di+1 −D′i+1 |+|Di+2 −D′i+2 |+|Di+3 −D′i+3 |
whether 2
< Errthreshold . If this is satisfied, we disregard Di + 2 as well. Similarly, we disregard Di + 3 if 3
<
Errthreshold . We continue this computation unless the error threshold is breached. The instant we find that the average error between data samples
SINGH ET AL. 7 of 13

and their interpolations is more than the threshold, we transmit the last data sample for which this average was within the threshold. We, then, start
interpolating again considering this data sample as the first point. At the end, TR is calculated based on the number of samples that are being trans-
mitted. Therefore, for every value of the Errthreshold , we will have an associated value of TR. We now need to find a combination of Errthreshold and TR for
which the regulating function has the lowest value. A crude manner is to consider every single value of Errthreshold ∈ [0, Errmax ] and compute the cor-
responding TR. Rlinear can be calculated for each of these combinations and the combination that gives the lowest value is identified. However, this
method takes significant computational effort which might not be supported by a resource constrained node. Therefore, we have decided to explore
the lowest value using the binary search algorithm.27 Using this algorithm, we quickly arrive at a value of Errthreshold , and hence its corresponding TR
that gives the least value of the regulating function by systematically reducing the search space for Errthreshold into halves.

8 EVALUATION

8.1 Charging profile of the supercapacitor

In this section, we evaluate how quickly light and vibrations can charge a 15 mF supercapacitor. From Table 2, we can see that a panel of dimen-
sions 60 mm × 70 mm gives a current of about 0.12 mA at 220 lux (regular office environment). Such a low current is insufficient to drive LTC3105
and hence, we need to use multiple panels resulting in an effective area of 0.315 m2 . Figure 4 shows the charging profile that is obtained using this
combination of panels. In about 92 seconds, the panels can charge the supercapacitor to 3.3 V at 220 lux. Figure 4 also shows the charging pro-
file of the supercapacitor when the vibrational harvester is operated at 25 Hz with different tipping masses at different vibrational amplitudes.
The supercapacitor charges faster when the vibrational amplitude is increased and the charging time decreases as the tipping mass is changed to a
nonoptimal value. With an amplitude of 2 g and a tipping mass of 36.1 g, vibrations can charge the supercapacitor completely in 82 seconds. Vibra-
tions at 1.5 g can fully charge the supercapacitor in about 92 seconds and with a tipping mass of 19.2 g, the supercapacitor charges to 3.3 V in about
430 seconds.

8.2 Adaptive sampling

To evaluate the performance of adaptive sampling based on AR model, we have compared it with a conventional sampling approach where the sam-
pling rate is fixed at 5 Hz and the resolution is fixed at 12-bits. Experiments are conducted where the sensor node samples temperature for about
40 s using both the conventional and the proposed sampling algorithms. The fidelity of temperature monitoring using adaptive sampling has been
shown in Figure 5. The figure has two major sections, viz., the section when the node is in the Adaptive zone and the section when the node is in
the High zone. In the High zone, the proposed algorithm tracks the temperature accurately with an average error of 1.71%. In the Adaptive zone, the
sampling is adaptive and the tracking is almost always accurate, except for a few intervals. While sampling with different resolutions, we encounter
an average error of 5.2%, 7.04%, 12.3%, and 18.18% for 12-bit, 10-bit, 9-bit, and 7-bit resolutions, respectively. We observed an energy saving of
62.12% and a 53.33% reduction in the amount of data bytes that are sampled.9

FIGURE 4 Charging profile of the supercapacitor with light and

vibrations
8 of 13 SINGH ET AL.

F I G U R E 5 Tracking the temperature using AR model based

adaptive sampling. The blue curve shows the result obtained when
temperature is sampled conventionally with fixed rate and resolution
and the violet curve shows the temperature values which are sampled
using the adaptive sampling algorithm

F I G U R E 6 Dividing the sampled

data in batches

9000 F I G U R E 7 Transmitted data with

Collected Data
Transmitted Data periodic transmissions
Sensor Node Output

8800
(x10 -4 V)

8600

8400

8200

8000
0 50 100 150 200
Time (s)

8.3 Regulating function based transmission

In this subsection, we document the benefits of regulating function based data transmission. To collect temperature data, we let the sensor node
sample the temperature for about 240 seconds. A total of 1200 data samples have been collected (Figure 6). When the sampling begins, the super-
capacitor is fully charged and it is assumed that node’s energy is not replenished in these 240 seconds. A total of 570.24 μJ of energy is consumed
while sampling these values. We have then studied the transmission of the collected data.
For periodic transmissions, data packets are transmitted every 2 seconds. A total of 120 data samples are transmitted (Figure 7). While, for
priority based transmissions, different transmission intervals are fixed for data packets of different priorities. When the priorities of the samples are
1, 0.75, 0.5, and 0.25, the transmission intervals are 2, 4, 6, and 8 seconds, respectively. Here, we find that only 39 samples are transmitted (Figure 8).
The energy consumed during both these transmissions schemes has been tabulated in Table 5. The table also tabulates the mean squared error
(MSE) observed after reconstructing the transmitted data.
We now evaluate the regulating function based transmission through simulations. First and foremost, Figure 9 depicts the variation in the ratio
of transmitted data with regards to the error. The range of error from 0% to 100% depicted on the x-axis implies that the Errthreshold varies from 0
to Errmax . The transmission ratio, depicted on the y-axis, also has the range from 0% to 100%. The curve indicates that as the amount of transmit-
ted data decreases, the error observed in its reconstruction increases. Figures 10 to 12 show the various error versus regulating function plots
with variations in the node’s energy, the rate of change and the priorities of the data samples. From Figure 10, we can infer that when node energy
SINGH ET AL. 9 of 13

F I G U R E 8 Transmitted data with priority 9000

Collected Data
based transmissions Transmitted Data

Sensor Node Output

8800

(x 10 -4 V)
8600

8400

8200

8000
0 50 100 150 200
Time (s)

TA B L E 5 Comparing the
Transmission method Transmission ratio (%) Energy spent (mJ) MSE in reconstruction
different transmission schemes
Periodic 10 9.98 1165.3

Priority based 3.25 3.243 4389.6

Regulating function 9.5 9.48 804.5

FIGURE 9 Variation in transmission ratio with error 100

80

Transmission Ratio (%)

60

40

20

0
0 20 40 60 80 100
Error (%)

F I G U R E 10 Allowed error with high node energy, high priority data 1 100
(0, 99.98)
and high rate of change

0.8 80

Transmission Ratio (%)

0.6 60
Rlinear

0.4 40

0.2 20

(0, 0.01)
0 0
0 20 40 60 80 100
Error (%)

is high and we have rapidly changing high priority data, the regulating function has the lowest value when there is 0% error and the correspond-
ing transmission ratio is 99.98%. Hence, the node transmits most of the data while experiencing minimal error. However, as depicted in Figure 11,
when the node energy drops, the regulating function is the lowest at an error of 13.33% and a corresponding transmission ratio of 5.61% implying
that the node cannot transmit all its data even though the data has high priority and varies rapidly. Figure 12 shows that with low energy levels, the
regulating function achieves its lowest value at an error of 24% for low priority data which does not have much variations. The corresponding trans-
mission ratio is 3.26% which indicates that under these conditions the node transmits a very small fraction of data samples thereby experiencing high
errors.
10 of 13 SINGH ET AL.

1 100 F I G U R E 11 Allowed error with moderate node energy, high

priority data, and high rate of change

0.8 80

Transmission Ratio (%)

0.6 60
Rlinear

0.4 40

0.2 20
(13.33,0.0817)

(13.33,5.6121)
0 0
0 20 40 60 80 100
Error (%)

1 100 F I G U R E 12 Allowed error with low node energy, low priority

data, and low rate of change

0.8 80
Transmission Ratio (%)

0.6 60
Rlinear

0.4 40

0.2 20

(24, 0.0535)
(24,3.2591)
0 0
0 20 40 60 80 100
Error (%)

9000 F I G U R E 13 Transmitted data with

Collected Data
regulating function based transmissions
Sensor Node Output

Transmitted Data
8800
(x 10 -4 V)

8600

8400

8200

8000
0 50 100 150 200
Time (s)

Figure 13 shows the results obtained after applying the regulating function based transmission on the temperature samples. In order to process
the samples, batches of 100 samples were considered. Data samples for one batch are collected in 20 seconds. A total of 12 such batches are pro-
cessed. Before processing each batch, energy available at the node is monitored and the coefficients are calculated. After processing all the batches,
a total of 114 samples are transmitted in this case. Since we have assumed that the nodes energy is not replenished, we can see that data samples
are transmitting more frequently in the beginning, when the node has adequate energy. As the time progresses, node’s energy drops and we observe
a drop in the number of transmitted samples as well. This leads to an average TR of 9.5% and an average error threshold of 15.09% across all the
batches. The total energy consumed and the associated reconstruction MSE are available in Table 5.

8.4 Node performance on harvested energy

We now evaluate if the node will be able to sample and transmit temperature data when powered using the energy harvested from light and vibra-
tions. As the regulating function based transmission scheme processes data in batches of 100 samples, a maximum energy of 47.52 μJ and a minimum
SINGH ET AL. 11 of 13

energy of 7.2 μJ is required to fill one such batch depending on the resolution of the data that is sampled. Similarly, 100 samples can be collected in
a maximum time of 100 seconds and a minimum time of 20 seconds depending on the rate at which the data is sampled (Figure 9). Energy available
with the node is evaluated at the beginning of each batch and if the available energy is unable to support transmission, a new batch is not sampled.
As the energy consumed for data transmissions is much greater as compared to the energy consumed for data collection, we focus only on data
transmissions for evaluating the node’s performance. We can draw the following inferences using Table 4 and Figure 4:

1. Either light or vibrations are available: If either light is available at 220 lux for about 90 seconds or vibrations at 25 Hz are available for about
90 seconds, with a tipping mass of 36.1 g, the supercapacitor gets completely charged. In case of periodic transmissions, we need to perform
120 transmission. While transmitting the first 115 samples, the energy of the node will remain in High zone and the temperature values can
be sampled at the highest rate and resolution. While transmitting the remaining samples, the node’s energy will come down to Adaptive zone
and adaptive sampling of temperature values will start. On the other hand, if we fix the transmission rate depending upon the priority of the
data samples, 39 transmissions can be easily accomplished and the node’s energy will remain in the High zone. If the transmissions are decided
based on the regulating function, 114 transmissions can be accomplished and the node’s energy will drop to Adaptive zone just after the last
transmission.
2. Both light and vibrations are available: In cases where both the sources are available, the prioritizer will switch to a source depending on its voltage
level and priority. If initially vibrations are low, the supercapacitor can be charged using light and transmissions can be started. If after some time,
light intensity decreases, then the system can be sustained using vibrations as long as the supercapacitor voltage does not fall below 2.5 V.

9 INSIGHTS FROM EVALUATIONS

As we operate inside an office environment, we have not operated the solar panels at their highest ratings as opposed to vibrational harvester where
we have calculated the optimum tipping mass so that maximum power can be generated from the harvester. Figure 5 depicts that with adaptive sam-
pling the temperature can be tracked in a fairly accurate manner. This demonstrates that our AR model can predict the changes in the temperature
with acceptable accuracy. Employing adaptive sampling also leads to savings in energy required for sampling and amount of data sampled.9
We have also shown that once data are sampled, we can choose not to transmit every single sampled value. However, this introduces recon-
struction errors at the aggregator. We have compared three transmission schemes, viz., periodic transmissions, priority based transmissions, and
transmissions based on regulating function, in terms of amount of transmissions and the reconstruction MSE encountered. Out of the three schemes,
only transmissions based on regulating function considers the node’s energy, the rate of change of the samples along with their priorities while
deciding which data samples to transmit.
From Table 5, we can see that when we fix the transmission rate depending upon data priority, we transmit the least number of packets. However,
the reconstruction at the aggregator suffers with a larger MSE as compared to the other two transmission schemes. Also, we can see that periodic
transmission and the transmission based on the regulating function suggest the transmission of almost the same number of packets for the sampled
data. However, the regulating function based transmission gives the best reconstruction at the aggregator. It can be seen that a few peaks that were
disregarded in case of periodic transmission (Figure 6) as well as priority based transmissions (Figure 7) are transmitted when the transmissions
are based on regulating function (Figure 13). With the current set of data samples, we did not see much improvement from periodic transmission
to regulating function based transmission. This is because the current dataset has a lot of variations and it makes sense to transmit data periodi-
cally. However, regulating function based transmission will outperform periodic transmission when either the data samples are changing at constant
rate or not changing at all. This can be inferred from the fact the regulating function based transmission tunes the transmission ratio based on the
characteristics of the data and energy available at the node as seen from Figures 10 to 12.
An important thing to note is that it is always beneficial to transmit a subset of the sampled data instead of transmitting every single sample. As
mentioned in Section 1, the node depletes its energy in about a minute when it transmits each one of the 322 data samples. On the other hand, with
limited transmissions, the node was able to sustain its operation for 240 seconds without depleting its energy, as explained in Section 8.4. This allows
the node to sample data for longer periods, thereby ensuring that the temperature monitoring application is not interrupted frequently. Transmitting
less number of packets not only saves energy at the sensor node, it also ensures that the network will not be flooded with large amount of data,
especially in cases where there are multiple sensor nodes transmitting data to a single aggregator. It also leads to better storage management at the
aggregator which needs to store data arriving from the sensor nodes. One of the caveats of the regulating function based transmission is that since
the data samples are processed in batches, the transmissions are delayed according to the batch size. For example, in the evaluated scenario, the
data packets will be delayed by about 20 seconds. Therefore, the batch size should be decided appropriately, if real-time guarantees are required by
an application.
An important thing to notice is that the algorithms proposed for data sampling and transmission in this article are modular and can be imple-
mented independent of one another. Benefits of regulating function based transmission can be reaped even when the data is sampled using any
other sampling mechanism. In addition, these algorithms are beneficial not only for an EHS node but also for a battery powered node.
12 of 13 SINGH ET AL.

In the discussions so far, we have ignored the leakage from the supercapacitor while considering the energy required for transmissions. If we
consider supercapacitor leakage, the incoming energy from the harvesters should compensate for the energy consumed by the node during node
operation, as well as the energy lost due to leakage.

10 CONCLUSION

A sensor node that is powered using energy harvested from indoor lighting and vibrations has been implemented for monitoring temperature. It
can be seen from the results that such a node can sustain itself provided the harvesters and supercapacitors are chosen appropriately and the data
sampling and transmissions are performed judiciously. A third order AR model based adaptive sampling scheme has been proposed and implemented
to aid the performance of the EHS node. Different methods of data transmission have been evaluated. Transmissions based on the regulating function
outperform all the methods. It considers the node’s energy, the rate of change and the priority of the sampled data when deciding the data subset
that should be transmitted so that the aggregator can reconstruct the variations accurately. Adaptive data sampling and transmissions based on
regulating function result in energy savings as well as improved data management. This way we reap the benefits of an energy harvested system,
which include virtually infinite lifetime, less maintenance, and hassle-free operation (no battery replacements) and meet the application demands.

ORCID
Kaumudi Singh https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6765-8366
Prabhakar T. V. https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2024-0197

REFERENCES
1. Gartner S. 6.4 billion connected “things” will be in use in 2016, up 30 percent from 2015. Gartner Inc.; 2015.
2. Corporation RE. SOTBTM Process Technology. 2019; https://www.renesas.com/cn/en/solutions/key-technology/sotb.html. Accessed May 5, 2019.
3. Corporation RE. Embedded Controller using SOTB technology. 2019; https://www.renesas.com/in/zh/solutions/key-technology/sotb/products.html.
Accessed May 5, 2019.
4. Sharma H, Haque A, Jaffery ZA. Maximization of wireless sensor network lifetime using solar energy harvesting for smart agriculture monitoring. Ad Hoc
Netw. 2019;94:101966. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.adhoc.2019.101966.
5. Babayo AA, Anisi MH, Ali I. A review on energy management schemes in energy harvesting wireless sensor networks. Renew Sust Energ Rev.
2017;76:1176-1184. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rser.2017.03.124.
6. Deng F, Yue X, Fan X, Guan S, Xu Y, Chen J. Multisource energy harvesting system for a wireless sensor network node in the field environment. IEEE
Internet Things J. 2018;6(1):918-927. https://doi.org/10.1109/JIOT.2018.2865431.
7. Chichao L, Jiaqi G, Jingping R, Han K, Tao H. A wireless mesh network based temperature monitoring system for blast furnaces. Paper presented at: 2017
13th IEEE International Conference on Electronic Measurement & Instruments (ICEMI); 1. Yangzhou, China: IEEE; 2017:265-269.
8. Kroener M. Energy harvesting technologies: energy sources, generators and management for wireless autonomous applications. Paper presented at:
International Multi-Conference on Systems, Signals & Devices. Chemnitz, Germany; 2012:1-4.
9. Singh K, Nayak K N, Kedilaya AA, Prabhakar TV, Joy K. Systems that sustain themselves: energy harvesting sensor nodes for monitoring the environment.
Paper presented at: 2019 7th International Conference on Future Internet of Things and Cloud (FiCloud); Istanbul, Turkey: IEEE; 2019.
10. Le TN, Pegatoquet A, Berder O, Sentieys O, Carer A. Energy-neutral design framework for supercapacitor based autonomous wireless sensor networks.
ACM J Emerg Technol Comput Syst. 2015;12(2):19. https://doi.org/10.1145/2787512.
11. Ruan T, Chew ZJ, Zhu M. Energy-aware approaches for energy harvesting powered wireless sensor nodes. IEEE Sensors J. 2017;17(7):2165-2173. https://
doi.org/10.1109/JSEN.2017.2665680.
12. Mothku SK, Rout RR. Fuzzy logic based adaptive duty cycling for sustainability in energy harvesting sensor actor networks. J King Saud Univ Comput
Inform Sci. 2018. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jksuci.2018.09.023.
13. Yi JM, Oh EJ, Noh DK, Yoon I. Energy-adaptive data compression and transmission range determination for energy-harvesting wireless sensor networks.
Paper presented at: 2017 International Conference on Information Networking (ICOIN); Da Nang, Vietnam: IEEE; 2017:383-385.
14. Gui S, Qiu R. High energy efficient relay adaptive transmission strategy. Paper presented at: 2019 28th Wireless and Optical Communications Conference
(WOCC); Beijing, China: IEEE; 2019:1-6.
15. Aoudia FA, Gautier M, Berder O. RLMan: an energy manager based on reinforcement learning for energy harvesting wireless sensor networks. IEEE Trans
Green Commun Netw. 2018;2(2):408-417. https://doi.org/10.1109/TGCN.2018.2801725.
16. Tekin N, Erdem HE, Gungor VC. Analyzing lifetime of energy harvesting wireless multimedia sensor nodes in industrial environments. Comput Stand Inter.
2018;58:109-117. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.csi.2017.12.005.
17. Tekin N, Gungor VC. The impact of error control schemes on lifetime of energy harvesting wireless sensor networks in industrial environments. Comput
Stand Inter. 2020;70:103417. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.csi.2020.103417.
18. Msechu EJ, Giannakis GB. Sensor-centric data reduction for estimation with WSNs via censoring and quantization. IEEE Trans Signal Process.
2011;60(1):400-414. https://doi.org/10.1109/TSP.2011.2171686.
19. Yang L, Zhu H, Wang H, Kang K, Qian H. Data censoring with network lifetime constraint in wireless sensor networks. Digital Signal Process. 2019;92:73-81.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.dsp.2019.05.004.
20. Instruments T. CC2530F256A: True System-on-Chip Solution for 2.4 GHz IEEE 802.15.4 and ZigBee Applications. http://www.ti.com.cn/product/cn/
cc2530. 2009-2011.
21. Inc. PS. Electronic Component Solar Panels. 2019; https://www.powerfilmsolar.com/custom-solutions/electronic-component-solar-panels. Accessed
May 5, 2019.
SINGH ET AL. 13 of 13

22. Technologies L. LTC 3105 - 400mA Step-Up DC/DC Converter with Maximum Power Point Control and 250mV Start-Up. https://www.linear.com/
LTC3105. 2010.
23. Technology M. PPA Products - Datasheets and User Manual. https://info.mide.com/hubfs/ppa-piezo-product-datasheet.pdf. 2017.
24. Technologies L. LTC 3588-1 - Nanopower Energy Harvesting Power Supply. https://www.linear.com/LTC3588-1. 2010.
25. Technologies L. LTC 4419 - 18V Dual Input Micropower PowerPath Prioritizer. https://www.analog.com/media/en/technical-documentation/data-
sheets/4419fa.pdf. 2015.
26. AVX . AVX BestCap Ultra-low ESR High Power Pulse Supercapacitors. http://catalogs.avx.com/BestCap.pdf.
27. Wikipedia . Binary search algorithm. 2020; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binary_search_algorithm. Accessed January 15, 2020.

How to cite this article: Singh K, Shukla P, S. M. S, Gnani NK, T. V. P, Kuri J. Judicious data management for sustaining an energy
harvesting sensor node. Concurrency Computat Pract Exper. 2020;e5997. https://doi.org/10.1002/cpe.5997