On-demand sensor node wake-up using solar panels and visible light communication

Abstract

To significantly reduce, or eliminate completely, the energy waste caused by the standby (idle) mode of wireless sensor nodes, we propose a novel on-demand wake-up system, which allows the nodes to be put into sleep mode unless their activation is truly necessary. Although there have been many studies proposing RF-based wake-up radio systems, in this work, we develop the first visible light communication (VLC)-based wake-up system. The developed system can extend the existing VLC systems and can be exploited to derive new application areas such as VLC tags. The system uses an off-the-shell indoor solar panel as receptor device of the wake-up signal as well as for energy harvesting purposes, through which it is able to harvest enough energy for its autonomous work. The design, implementation details and the experimental evaluation results are presented, which include flickering characterization and wake-up range evaluations. The results show that the developed system achieve reasonable wake-up distances for indoor environments, mainly where the use of VLC systems are considered.