A Self-powering Wireless Soil-pH and Electrical Conductance Monitoring IC with Hybrid Microbial Electrochemical and Photovoltaic Energy Harvesting

Abstract

Soil monitoring provides comprehensive information on the ecosystem and soil functions, but it involves intensive field sampling and costly laboratory analysis. Advanced wireless sensor networks ease the sampling process and labor efforts [1]. However, the proliferation of wireless environmental monitoring applications is problematic in maintaining the power required for proper operation. Also, battery poses issues for minimizing sensor nodes and limiting environmental pollution. Ambient energy harvesting offers an alternative power supply to operate the sensor interface and wireless transceiver [2]-[5]. However, batteryless wireless sensor nodes typically suffer from low RF-powering sensitivity ( -20dBm) [2], [5] and a short communication distance [4], making them unsuitable for wide-range environmental monitoring.