Design, modeling, and capacity planning for micro-solar power sensor networks

This paper describes a systematic approach to building micro-solar power subsystems for wireless sensor network nodes. Our approach composes models of the basic pieces -solar panels, regulators, energy storage elements, and application loads - to appropriately select and size the components. We demonstrate our approach in the context of a microclimate monitoring project through the design of the node, micro-solar subsystem, and network, which is deployed in a challenging, deep forest setting. We evaluate our deployment by analyzing the effects of the range of solar profiles experienced across the network.