6th International ICST Symposium on Modeling and Optimization

Research Article

Stochastic Modeling and Analysis for Environmentally Powered Wireless Sensor Nodes

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  • @INPROCEEDINGS{10.4108/ICST.WIOPT2008.3179,
        author={Alexandru E. Susu and Andrea Acquaviva and David Atienza and Giovanni De Micheli},
        title={Stochastic Modeling and Analysis for Environmentally Powered Wireless Sensor Nodes},
        proceedings={6th International ICST Symposium on Modeling and Optimization},
        publisher={IEEE},
        proceedings_a={WIOPT},
        year={2008},
        month={8},
        keywords={Energy harvesting Wireless Sensor Nodes Discrete Time Markov Chains stochastic modeling system metrics},
        doi={10.4108/ICST.WIOPT2008.3179}
    }
    
  • Alexandru E. Susu
    Andrea Acquaviva
    David Atienza
    Giovanni De Micheli
    Year: 2008
    Stochastic Modeling and Analysis for Environmentally Powered Wireless Sensor Nodes
    WIOPT
    IEEE
    DOI: 10.4108/ICST.WIOPT2008.3179
Alexandru E. Susu1,*, Andrea Acquaviva2,*, David Atienza1,*, Giovanni De Micheli1,*
  • 1: LSI/EPFL, EPFL-IC-ISIM-LSI Station 14, 1015 Lausanne, Switzerland
  • 2: DI/University of Verona, Strada le Grazie 15, Verona, Italy
*Contact email: alex.susu@epfl.ch, andrea.acquaviva@univr.it, david.atienza@epfl.ch, giovanni.demicheli@epfl.ch

Abstract

Environmental energy is becoming a feasible alternative for many low-power systems, such as wireless sensor nodes. Designing an environmentally powered device faces several challenges: choosing the exact type of the energy harvester, the energy storage elements and determining the duty cycle of the application. With harvesting, the design process becomes even more difficult because it also has to take into account the unpredictability of the energy source. The contribution of this paper is a methodology that facilitates the analysis of energy harvesting nodes. The existing modeling strategies for battery powered systems are not suitable because they do not capture the uncertainty of the power source. Also, the metrics of interest for battery powered devices are different, as opposed to the harvesting powered ones: in the former case we search to maximize the system lifetime, while in the latter case a more expressive goal is to increase the system availability