Power consumption and battery life study of a two-node Wireless Sensor System

Abstract

A Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) should be autonomous, self-sustainable and able to function for several years. However, due to the slow advancement in battery technology, battery power continues to be a limited resource in wireless sensor communication and thus electric energy storage remains to be an important issue. The aim of this work is to conduct a study on battery life estimation for wireless sensor communication. Three new batteries with different capacities: 55mAh, 550mAh and 5500mAh were considered in this study. The results show that an increase in the battery capacity increases the two-node wireless sensor system operation time. This result can be used to extrapolate the required battery capacity for extending the wireless sensor system life time.