Tempo: An energy harvesting mote resilient to power outages

  • Authors:

  • Chen, Yin Chen;Wang, Qiang Wang;Gupchup, Jayant Gupchup;Terzis, Andreas Terzis

  • Affiliations:

  • Computer Science Department, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD 21218, USA;Dept. of Control Science and Engineering, Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin, P. R. China;Computer Science Department, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD 21218, USA;Computer Science Department, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD 21218, USA

  • Venue:
  • LCN '10 Proceedings of the 2010 IEEE 35th Conference on Local Computer Networks
  • Year:
  • 2010

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Abstract

We present the design of the Tempo mote that operates on ambient energy harvested from the environment. Equipped with a ultra low-power timing module that acquires Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) information from a longrange radio transmitter, Tempo can persistently access the global time and is thereby resilient to power outages. A prototype implementation of the Tempo mote shows that it achieves millisecond level accuracy at 100 µA current draw. We argue that one can more generally leverage the access to global time across all nodes of a wireless sensor network to overcome the challenges related to the very tight energy budget that is inherent with harvesting ambient energy.