A Parametric Performance Evaluation of Batteries in Wireless Sensor Networks

Abstract

The use of wireless devices is increasing day by day. Most wireless devices are based on tiny sensors that gather information from their contiguous environment automatically without interacting with humans. The working of these tiny sensors basically depends upon batteries. In wireless devices, batteries play an essential role. Thus, there is a need to investigate the performance of batteries on the basis of various realistic parameters that directly or indirectly affect performance and evaluate the total lifetime of batteries. Wireless sensor networks (WSNs) are deployed in disaster areas such as military/battlefields, environmental monitoring, and intelligent building systems. They contain an extensive number of nodes that need to work normally for months to years to complete their assigned tasks. WSNs require considerable power for self-management. Due to the small size of sensor nodes, the power supply devoted to sensor nodes must be very restricted in size. Therefore, the power supply becomes a difficult issue in WSNs. Battery life is predicted under different duty cycle like low duty cycle, commissioning and packet streaming. In low duty cycle battery load is minimum due to the few number of tasks. In Commissioning mode battery perform average number of task and in packet streaming battery load is maximum due to large number of tasks. The end of this chapter presents a critical discussion of the issues.