Towards energy harvesting in wireless sensor networks

Recent years have seen remarkable advancement in the field of Energy Harvesting Wireless Sensor Networks (EH-WSNs). The popularity of Energy Harvesting has grown due to their capability of prolonging the network lifetime. The devices utilizing energy harvesting are affected by inefficiencies, including, energy leakage, and battery degradation or storage losses. Many different protocols are being developed in the recent years in this domain. These protocols can be categorized in a variety of ways with respect to their mechanisms and functionalities they follow, hence it becomes important to understand their principal working. In this research, we have selected some recent routing protocols in the field of EH-WSNs and presented a comparative analysis in accordance to their categories in which they lie. A detailed analysis of their key advantages and flaws is also identified in this research.