Towards Continuous Sensor Operation: Modelling a Secured Smart Sensor in a Sparse Network Operated by Energy Harvesting

In modern society sensors are omnipresent. They gather information about their environment in order to optimize production flows, minimize energy usage, learn about the environment, or maximize the owner’s comfort. To achieve the desired goal in already existing buildings, sensors are introduced afterwards. These sensors might not be able to connect to a sensor network because of obstacles or user policies. If this happens, other mechanisms to create a network to gather the data need to be found. Additionally, these sensors should last for a long period and are therefore probably powered using energy harvesting methods. In this paper we present an approach for simulating the charging process of such sensors and connecting them to a network using mobile communication partners.