NeTS: GOALI: Towards Adaptability to Variations of Renewable Energy in Large Scale Rechargeable Wireless Sensor Networks

该项目将由北卡罗来纳大学夏洛特分校和电力研究所(EPRI)的研究人员进行，旨在解决使用收集的环境能量实现无线传感器网络(WSN)可靠和不间断运行的实际设计问题。挑战在于，这些能源往往受到巨大的时空变化的影响。该项目的目标是创建一个框架，允许可充电节点在执行其所需的监测任务时自动适应估计的能源预算。这一自适应框架在两个级别上实现。第一种适用于传输功率控制和能量感知路由；而第二种适用于使用自适应跨级采样方案来解决对时间变化的适应。智能优点：建议的研究组件可以应用于任何可充电的传感器网络。提出的协作功率控制方法有可能解决大规模无线传感器网络中的关键问题--监听问题。这里考虑的能量感知和负载平衡路由问题解决了满足特定能源预算的独特需求。这些网络级解决方案与自适应应用级解决方案相集成，旨在克服能源变化带来的挑战。广泛影响：这项研究解决了当前研究界广泛关注的一个关键问题。此外，该项目将通过提供两门研究生课程和创建研究生水平的研究项目，对北卡罗来纳大学夏洛特分校的学生产生教育影响。该项目将在理论研究和应用之间架起一座桥梁，并将促进相关学术和行业合作伙伴之间更强有力的研究合作。

This project, which is to be conducted by researchers from UNC Charlotte and the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI), addresses practical design issues for achieving reliable and uninterrupted operation of wireless sensor networks (WSNs) using harvested ambient energy. The challenge is that these energy sources are often subject to significant spatial and temporal variations. The goal of this project is to create a framework allowing rechargeable nodes to automatically adapt to estimated energy budgets while performing their required monitoring tasks. This adaptive framework is implemented at two levels. The first applies to transmission power control and energy-aware routing; while the second addresses adaptations to temporal variations using an adaptive level-crossing sampling scheme. Intellectual Merit: The proposed research components may be applied to any rechargeable sensor network. The proposed cooperative power control method can potentially solve the overhearing problem, which is a key issue in large-scale wireless sensor networks. The energy-aware and load-balanced routing problems considered here address the unique requirement of meeting specific energy budgets. These network-level solutions are integrated with an adaptive application-level solution designed to overcome the challenges introduced by energy variations.Broader Impacts: This research addresses a critical issue that is currently of wide interest in the research community. In addition, this project will make educational impacts on UNC-Charlotte students by offering two graduate courses and creating graduate level research projects. This project will bridge the gap between theoretical research and applications and will facilitate stronger research collaborations between the academic and industrial partners involved.