Title :
Extending lifetime of battery operated wireless sensor node with DC-DC switching converter
Author :
Oletic, Dinko ; Razov, Tomislav ; Bilas, Vedran
Author_Institution :
Fac. of Electr. Eng. & Comput., Univ. of Zagreb, Zagreb, Croatia
Abstract :
In this paper we study lifetime extension of a wireless sensor node operated from primary battery through a DC-DC switching converter. The node was developed in course of the environmental monitoring project MasliNET. A step-up switching converter is needed to drain the battery when its voltage drops below the operating voltage of the node. In order to minimize the losses caused by the DC-DC converter it is important to shut it down whenever possible and keep the difference between its input and output voltage low. We have developed a controllable power-supply unit and a dynamic control algorithm that manages the use and the output voltage of the DC-DC converter based on the current node´s task requirements and the battery state. We have experimentally verified the solution by comparing it to the node permanently operated from a fixed output voltage DC-DC converter. It has been shown that the proposed power-supply design and the control algorithm prolong battery lifetime as much as 30%.
Keywords :
DC-DC power convertors; electric potential; environmental monitoring (geophysics); primary cells; switching convertors; wireless sensor networks; DC-DC switching converter; battery operated wireless sensor node; controllable power-supply unit; current node task requirement; dynamic control algorithm; environmental monitoring project MasliNET; primary battery lifetime; step-up switching converter; voltage drop; Batteries; Heuristic algorithms; Monitoring; Voltage control; Voltage measurement; Wireless communication; Wireless sensor networks; DC-DC output voltage control; DC-DC switching converter; Wireless sensor node; battery lifetime; power-supply;
Conference_Titel :
Instrumentation and Measurement Technology Conference (I2MTC), 2011 IEEE
Conference_Location :
Binjiang
Print_ISBN :
978-1-4244-7933-7
DOI :
10.1109/IMTC.2011.5944247