Researchers at The Australian National University are a step closer to collecting renewable or ambient energy from mobile phone base stations to power battery-operated wireless sensors used in industries, including agriculture and health as written on Gizmodo.
Dr Salman Durrani, lead researcher from the ANU School of Engineering said current wireless sensors for building, biomedical applications and wildlife monitoring are using batteries that are often very hard to replace. The ANU researchers have accurately modelled how much energy it takes to send and transfer information through wireless sensors. They are working on further to provide ways to analyse the problem.
According to Dr Durrani, replacing batteries is one of the major problems that hinders the widespread deployment of wireless sensor networks. He added that wireless sensors are increasingly being used in many aspects of daily life like in the Australian Viticulture in measuring light, humidity, wind speed, and soil moisture. It’s also used in sports and for monitoring structures and other machines. The research found it was practical to replace batteries with power harvested from solar or ambient radio frequency sources like communication towers or other mobile phone base stations.
Dr Durrani also stated that although the technology was years away, the research has dealt with an important practical problem.
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Image credit: Gizmodo
Solar Trust Centre Team
