Efficient Energy Management in Energy Harvesting Wireless Sensor Networks: An Approach Based on Distributed Compressive Sensing

未来部署用于环境、工业或事件监测的无线传感器网络（WSN）基础设施预计将配备能量收集器（例如压电、热或光伏），以大幅提高其自主性和使用寿命。然而，人们也普遍认识到，由于当前能量收集（EH）技术的局限性，以及对更多数据密集型应用的需求激增，传感器的能量可用性和传感器的能耗要求之间的现有差距不太可能在不久的将来缩小。因此，对于数据密集型应用来说，永久运行的无线传感器网络目前是不可能实现的，因为更换电池需要大量（且昂贵）的人为干预。随着能源效率的不断提高是WSN研究的主要驱动力，本研究项目的主要目标是开发变革性的传感机制，可以与当前或即将到来的EH功能结合使用，以便能够部署能量中性或接近能量中性的WSN，其实际网络寿命和数据收集速率比当前最先进的技术高出两个数量级。提出的研究的理论基础是压缩感知（CS）和分布式压缩感知（DCS）的新兴范式，以及能量和信息优化的数据采集和传输协议。这些元素提供了在WSN中将能量消耗过程与能量收集过程的随机性紧密耦合的手段，以实现网络寿命和数据收集速率的突破。拟议的项目汇集了一个由EPSRC ICT投资组合领域的理论家和实验家组成的团队，这些领域已被确定为扩展。该团队能够很好地开发、实施和评估新型WSN技术。该联盟还包括一些成熟和早期公司，这些公司明确认为该项目将影响其中长期产品开发，并加强其与世界一流学术机构的战略联系。我们预计，新型WSN技术的成功演示将引起英国和国外对机器对机器（M2M）和物联网（IoT）行业的极大兴趣。

Future deployments of wireless sensor network (WSN) infrastructures for environmental, industrial or event monitoring are expected to be equipped with energy harvesters (e.g. piezoelectric, thermal or photovoltaic) in order to substantially increase their autonomy and lifetime.However, it is also widely recognized that the existing gap between the sensors' energy availability and the sensors' energy consumption requirements is not likely to close in the near future due to limitations in current energy harvesting (EH) technology, together with the surge in demand for more data-intensive applications. Hence, perpetually operating WSNs are currently impossible to realize for data-intensive applications, as significant (and costly) human intervention is required to replace batteries.With the continuous improvement of energy efficiency representing a major drive in WSN research, the major objective of this research project is to develop transformative sensing mechanisms, which can be used in conjunction with current or upcoming EH capabilities, in order to enable the deployment of energy neutral or nearly energy neutral WSNs with practical network lifetime and data gathering rates up to two orders of magnitude higher than the current state-of-the-art.The theoretical foundations of the proposed research are the emerging paradigms of compressive sensing (CS) and distributed compressive sensing (DCS) as well as energy- and information-optimal data acquisition and transmission protocols. These elements offer the means to tightly couple the energy consumption process to the random nature of the energy harvesting process in a WSN in order to achieve the breakthroughs in network lifetime and data gathering rates.The proposed project brings together a team of theoreticians and experimentalists working in areas of the EPSRC ICT portfolio that have been identified for expansion. This team is well placed to be able to develop, implement and evaluate the novel WSN technology. The consortium also comprises a number of established and early stage companies that clearly view the project as one that will impact their medium and long term product developments and also strengthen their strategic links with world class academic institutions. We anticipate that a successful demonstration of the novel WSN technology will generate significant interest in the machine-to-machine (M2M) and Internet of Things (IoT) industries both in the UK and abroad.