Information Harvesting Method by an Energy Harvesting Device with Multiple Microcontrollers

摘要

Energy harvesting technology can be used in microcontrollers to detect the state of surroundings such as an anomalous state like a theft case where electricity cannot be supplied. The wave shape of the harvested power can be measured as signals that represent the state of the surroundings, and it can be used for state detection. However, conventional techniques cannot effectively supply all harvested energy to microcontroller operations. The technique proposed in this paper solves the problem by utilizing multiple microcontrollers with roles that are divided into two stages: the first is for synchronization of calculation progress with the shape of the electric power wave, and the other is for restoring the wave shape and for deciding the state of the surroundings. The signal line connecting the energy harvesting device and the microcontroller is not needed. All of the harvested energy is supplied to the microcontrollers for their calculations of state detection. Moreover, this technique supplies microcontrollers with more harvested energy and allows them to perform more complex algorithms to harvest the information on the surroundings. An evaluation of this technique showed that the state detection accuracy was higher in the microcontrollers than in the single microcontroller system, and the results revealed it can even send the data as a power supply-less IoT sensor with an LPWA module.