Sustainable Long-Term and Wide-Area Environment Monitoring Network Based on Distributed Self-Powered Wireless Sensing Nodes

Environmental monitoring of local climatic variations plays a vital role in the research on global warming, species diversity, ecological sustainability, and so on. Traditional monitoring technologies, such as meteorological stations or satellite imagery, can give an overall environment picture but at high cost, high energy consumption, and with insufficient regional details. Here, a networking system made of low-cost, maintenance-free, and distributed self-powered wireless monitoring nodes is proposed, aimed at establishing a sensing system for long-term and wide-area environment monitoring. It is demonstrated that, as driven by gentle wind, these distributed nodes are able to monitor temperature, humidity, and atmospheric pressure automatically, and then transfer the sensing data to receiving terminals wirelessly using triboelectric nanogenerators as energy harvesting technologies. The longest transmitting distance is 2.1 km. Additionally, a sensing network is formed. By utilizing several nodes, a 2-km(2) region is covered, and the information can be transmitted live using a relay-technology. Furthermore, the node is demonstrated to work for weeks, and continuously send back environmental data. Since the nodes are portable and the embedded sensors are customizable, it is anticipated that the system can be multifunctional and applied in many natural areas, such as forests, prairies, mountains, lake regions, and so on.