For the past years wireless sensor networks (WSNs) have been coined as one of the mostpromising technologies for supporting a wide range of applications. However, outside theresearch community, few are the people who know what they are and what they can offer.Even fewer are the ones that have seen these networks used in real world applications. Themain obstacle for the proliferation of these networks is energy, or the lack of it. Eventhough renewable energy sources are always present in the networks environment,designing devices that can efficiently scavenge that energy in order to sustain the operationof these networks is still an open challenge.Energy scavenging, along with energy efficiency and energy conservation, are the currentavailable means to sustain the operation of these networks, and can all be framed withinthe broader concept of “Energetic Sustainability”. A comprehensive study of the severalissues related to the energetic sustainability of WSNs is presented in this thesis, with aspecial focus in today’s applicable energy harvesting techniques and devices, and in theenergy consumption of commercially available WSN hardware platforms.This work allows the understanding of the different energy concepts involving WSNs andthe evaluation of the presented energy harvesting techniques for sustaining wireless sensornodes. This survey is supported by a novel experimental analysis of the energyconsumption of the most widespread commercially available WSN hardware platforms.
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