Long-life, maintenance-free, self-powered wireless sensor networks (WSNs) could potentially benefit many applications using WSNs with nodes that do not have access to continuous, conditioned power. However, the lifetime of self-powered WSNs has been severely limited by the cycle life and a short life span of rechargeable batteries (RBs), the current popular storage device for energy harvesting wireless sensors. Alternatively, supercapacitors (SCs) have cycle lives on the order of millions and a life span of 20 years or more. Recent advances in SC technology may lead to a paradigm shift from a battery-based to a SC-based design if the adaptive power management can be established to maintain the sustainability of the WSNs, which will generate great interest from many long-life applications.

This research project aims to establish the theoretical foundation and applied framework of adaptive power management for supercapacitor-powered wireless sensors, which enables the next generation of perpetual, sustainable operation of environmentally-powered WSNs. This project consists of three main research components: (1) investigate how supercapacitor device characteristics affect power management policies and provide guidelines for SC-powered embedded systems; (2) create practical and accurate SC models for supporting power management research in energy harvesting WSNs; (3) design the SC-aware power management framework that enables sustainable operation of WSNs and evaluate it in laboratory testing and practical SC-based energy harvesting WSNs.