Smart LED Lights Control Using Nano-Power Wake Up Radios

Wireless sensor networks (WSNs) are widely employed today in real world applications. Smart homes and smart cities are the most promising application currently exploiting WSN. Smart lighting with WSN in particular is promising to achieve a low cost, wireless, easily installed, adaptable system to automatically adjust the light intensity of LED panels, with the aim of saving energy and maintaining user satisfaction. However, lifetime and power consumption of wireless devices are still the most critical challenge that limits the success of this technology. This issue is especially critical when wireless sensor nodes are powered by limited energy storage devices (i.e. small batteries or supercaps). To overcome this issue, major research efforts focus on reducing power consumption, particularly communication, as the radio transceiver is one of the highest power consumers. In this work we present the design and development of a highly efficient wireless system targeting indoor control of lights using ultra low power wake up radio technology. Thanks to the wake up radio the energy efficiency of the communication is improved and this significantly increases the lifetime of the solution. We design the sensor and control devices for a smart light controlling system that can be retrofitted and maintain a long lifetime even when supplied by batteries. Measurements of current and power consumption of both the designed system confirm the ultra-low power of the nodes and the benefits to use the energy efficient power communication implemented with the wake up radio.