Maximizing energy harvesting with adjustable solar panel for BLE beacon

Perm Soonsawad, Kang Eun Jeon, James She, Ching Hong Lam, Pai Chet Ng

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contributionpeer-review

4 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) beacons can be powered up with a small coin cell battery. The problem with battery-powered beacon is that frequent battery replacement is required. Such a battery replacement process can be very tedious considering the massive amount of already deployed beacons. While solar-powered beacons have emerged as an alternative to the battery-powered beacon, beacon deployment is challenging considering the very low ambient light energy available in indoor environments. This paper presents an innovate solar-powered beacon with an adjustable solar panel. In particular, we employ Markov Decision Process (MDP) to model the angle adjusting problem. The contribution of this paper is two-fold: 1) the MDP formulation is based on the insight obtained from a series of preliminary experiments which unveil the relationship between the incident angle and the harvested power; 2) our experiment shows that the legacy Policy Iteration (PI) and Value Iteration (VI) algorithms achieve similar optimized decision-making by adjusting the angle of solar panels such that to quickly charge up the beacon when it is low in energy. This rapid charging time guarantees the sustainable operation of solar-powered beacons in indoor environments.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationProceedings - 2019 IEEE International Congress on Cybermatics
Subtitle of host publication12th IEEE International Conference on Internet of Things, 15th IEEE International Conference on Green Computing and Communications, 12th IEEE International Conference on Cyber, Physical and Social Computing and 5th IEEE International Conference on Smart Data, iThings/GreenCom/CPSCom/SmartData 2019
PublisherInstitute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc.
Pages229-234
Number of pages6
ISBN (Electronic)9781728129808
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Jul 2019
Externally publishedYes
Event12th IEEE International Conference on Internet of Things, 15th IEEE International Conference on Green Computing and Communications, 12th IEEE International Conference on Cyber, Physical and Social Computing and 5th IEEE International Conference on Smart Data, iThings/GreenCom/CPSCom/SmartData 2019 - Atlanta, United States
Duration: 14 Jul 201917 Jul 2019

Publication series

NameProceedings - 2019 IEEE International Congress on Cybermatics: 12th IEEE International Conference on Internet of Things, 15th IEEE International Conference on Green Computing and Communications, 12th IEEE International Conference on Cyber, Physical and Social Computing and 5th IEEE International Conference on Smart Data, iThings/GreenCom/CPSCom/SmartData 2019

Conference

Conference12th IEEE International Conference on Internet of Things, 15th IEEE International Conference on Green Computing and Communications, 12th IEEE International Conference on Cyber, Physical and Social Computing and 5th IEEE International Conference on Smart Data, iThings/GreenCom/CPSCom/SmartData 2019
Country/TerritoryUnited States
CityAtlanta
Period14/07/1917/07/19

Keywords

  • Adjustable solar panel
  • BLE beacon
  • Energy harvesting
  • Markov Decision Process (MDP)

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