A Pulsed Discharge Control of Battery

In wireless sensor networks, prolonging battery lifetime is one of the most important issues. Concerning about batteries, we know that giving rest periods to a battery in its discharge process can prolong its lifetime; however, we do not know how long it can prolong the lifetime. In this paper, paying attention to a simple battery on-off switching technique called "pulsed discharge control" as a means to prolong the lifetime of a normal battery, we experimentally evaluate the effect. Furthermore, based on the experimental results, we conduct a computer simulation to evaluate how many packets a sensor node can handle with and without a battery management method, which changes cells in the battery to use according to arrival and generated packets. Our computer simulation results show that the battery management method only containing two cells cans double the lifetime, as compared with a normal use of cells