Ultra Low Power Wireless Sensor Network for Pink Iguanas Monitoring

Energy management is a key issue in the design of long-lived wireless sensor networks. (WSNs). Energy is used to collect data by sensors and to communicate it to other nodes and to the gateways. The energy management procedures aim at minimizing the energy consumption of both the data acquisition and transmission activities. A careful design is crucial when the devices are powered by energy harvesting techniques, such as solar power. This paper describes a device architecture for a WSN node designed to monitor the habit of pink iguanas: a recently discovered species living in remote locations at the Galápagos Islands. The few individuals of this species live in a relatively small area (around 25 km2 on top of Volcano Wolf, Isla Isabela) that lacks of any available communication infrastructure. The design combines an ultra low power sleep mode and a long range communication capability that requires a very high power consumption.