Rechargeable Sensor Networks Technology, Theory, and Application : Introducing Energy Harvesting to Sensor Networks

The harvesting of energy from ambient energy sources to power electronic devices has been recognized as a promising solution to the issue of powering the ever-growing number of mobile devices around us.Key technologies in the rapidly growing field of energy harvesting focus on developing solutions to capture ambient energy surrounding the mobile devices and convert it into usable electrical energy for the purpose of recharging said devices. Achieving a sustainable network lifetime via battery-aware designs brings forth a new frontier for energy optimization techniques. These techniques had, in their early stages, resulted in the development of low-power hardware designs. Today, they have evolved into power-aware designs and even battery-aware designs.This book covers recent results in the field of rechargeable sensor networks, including technologies and protocol designs to enable harvesting energy from alternative energy sources such as vibrations, temperature variations, wind, solar, and biochemical energy and passive human power.