10th International Conference and Exposition on Electrical and Power Engineering (EPE2018)
Power Management In IoT Weather Station
László-Zsolt Turos
Sapientia University
Faculty of Technical and Human
Sciences
Targu Mures, Romania
turosl@ms.sapientia.ro
Abstract— This paper presents a power management solution
for an Internet of Things (IoT) based, battery operated weather
station prototype. A complete simulation software was developed
to validate this system with real weather data. Through the help
of the developed software and power consumption measurements
made on the prototype an optimized system runtime was
calculated and implemented. In order to reduce maintenance the
calculations were fine tuned to allow a switch from batteries to
supercapacitors.
Keywords—IOT; Wi-Fi; CoAP; MCU; Power management;
weather station; photovoltaic; energy harvesting; battery
I. INTRODUCTION
The general purpose of this paper is to present theoretical
and practical methods and solutions for power management in
IoT applications. As described in a comparative study of
power management techniques for wireless sensor networks
[1], Wi-Fi technology seems to have the greatest power
consumption compared to Bluetooth, Zigbee and others.
Despite this fact, since it guarantees direct access to the
internet, Wi-Fi becomes the ideal wireless protocol candidate
for the presented IoT system. The power consumption and
runtime of the system was simulated with a custom made
software using real weather data from a chosen geographical
location. The electronic circuits and algorithms were
optimized based on these simulations and an IoT system with
increased and optimized energy efficiency and runtime was
Solar Panel Power
Management Battery
MCU
WiFi, I2C, ADC
Power
Switches
P
UV
Sensors
Fig. 1: Block diagram of the meteorological station project
978-1-5386-5062-2/18/$31.00 ©2018 European Union
Géza Csernáth Barna Csenteri
Research and Development Research and Development
Gautinfo Ltd. Green Electronics LLC, CA. USA
Targu Mures, Romania brown@mini-box.com
csgeza@gautinfo.ro
obtained. The block diagram of the proposed system is
presented in Fig.1. It consists of a solar panel and a battery
pack connected in a diode-OR configuration powering a
synchronous DC to DC boost converter in the power
management block. The battery pack consists of two AA size
batteries connected in series. The converter provides regulated
power supply for the IoT capable chip (ESP-WROOM-32)
detailed in [2], and the sensors connected to its digital and
analog peripherals. Given the nature of the application, the
system should be able to work uninterrupted from the
available energy sources: the solar panel and/or the backup
battery. In order to achieve this behavior each system
component was individually analyzed and the overall system
performance was simulated. Experimental measurements have
been performed to validate the simulation results.
II. SYSTEM DESCRIPTION
A diode-or is formed by Schottky diodes with low
maximum reverse current [3] so the battery does not discharge
back on the photovoltaic panel during low battery or deep
sleep conditions. The photovoltaic module is made of
monocrystalline, high efficiency solar cells with a typical
efficiency of 22% [4]. Photovoltaic modeling and a practical
implementation of a solar array simulator using SEPIC
topology were already presented in previous studies of the
authors in [5] and [6], respectively. The selected DC to DC
converter is a highly efficient synchronous boost converter
capable of regulating its output voltage even when the input
voltage exceeds the nominal 3.3V output voltage value. It also
features low power mode for improved energy efficiency at
low output power, operating only when the output voltage
trips below a set threshold voltage [7]. The converter’s load
consists of the IoT chip and peripherals, a dynamic load that
depends on the current state of the power management
algorithm that is running on the 32 bit MCU.
The main tasks performed periodically by the IoT system
are sensor readings, analog to digital conversions, data
handling and transmission, sleeping for a predefined number
of seconds and waking up from this deep sleep state. The
sensors are connected either directly through A/D ports or I2C
bus, the measurements are transmitted to the IoT Cloud
through Wi-Fi. Three cyclically repeated power states need to
be considered, the most important and power hungry state
being the Wi-Fi transmission state. The second most
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demanding is the data collecting state when sensors are polled.
The third state requires the lowest energy, during deep sleep of
the MCU and peripherals. The overall energy requirement of
the system can be reduced by increasing the duration of the
deep sleep state; however, this would affect the resolution of
the logged data in the online storage system. The CoAP [8]
protocol was selected for data transmission. This is a
specialized web transfer protocol for use with constrained
nodes and networks in the Internet of Things.
The energy required for a complete cycle can be
summarized in the equation below,
3
E = ¦ Pi ⋅ ti (1),
i =1
where Pi are different power consumptions during the ti time
intervals. P1t1 is the energy consumption during booting and
collecting data from sensors, P2t2 is the energy consumption
during Wi-Fi transmission and P3t3 is the energy consumption
during deep sleep state.
Fig. 2: Battery storage comparison
In order to choose the best match for our system a
comparison has been performed between different types of
series battery configurations. Since the difference in energy
between two AA or three AAA combination is not much (see
Fig. 3: Selected circuit. Booster topology efficiency [7]
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Fig. 4: The charger diode transfer characteristics [10]
Fig.2.), but the space saved is, the first configuration has been
selected for further evaluation. State of charge estimation and
offline battery modeling presented by the authors in [9] will be
used for the current system power budget estimations.
The logic circuits need to be powered with 3.3V.
Knowing that the overall voltage of the chosen battery pack is
allowed to drop to 2V but the system should remain functional
at 2V, a booster converter topology is required with a good
efficiency over the range of interest (Fig.3.). To keep
component costs low the charger was reduced to a single
Schottky diode. Given the relatively small amount of current
available from the photovoltaic module, the useful area from
the diode’s transfer characteristics is limited (Fig. 4.).
III. THE SIMULATOR SOFTWARE AND RESULTS
In order to validate the proposed system and estimate the
runtime during various scenarios a complete simulation
software has been developed. The software takes the following
as input: location and solar irradiation (data obtained from
CIMIS weather stations) previously processed by the authors
in [11], the photovoltaic panel’s parameters (required to
produce the I-V curves when calculating the efficiency of the
charger), the diode parameters used for charging, the DC-DC
booster parameters, the battery capacity and configuration,
charging efficiency and the load.
The load present in the system can be divided in two
groups: passive and dynamic components. The passive
components are consuming regardless of the current state of
the MCU. The dynamic components’ consumption depends on
the software running on the ESP32 MCU. The sensors’
(ambient light, UV, relative humidity, temperature,
atmospheric pressure, ambient noise) power supply can be
turned ON/OFF by software control. The MCU power
consumption varies over time, sequencing through the three
power states. The power management algorithm is responsible
of putting the MCU into one of these states and adjusting the
Wi-Fi transmission frequency based on the available energy.
The rate at which the client posts data on a CoAP server can
be customized from software.

Fig. 5: The developed simulation software
The simulator software’s main outputs are the evolution of
the battery voltage and the remaining capacity over time.
Fig. 6: System fails after 1000 hour in Santa Monica using tcycle=120s
Fig. 7: System at limit, fails after 2 years in Santa Monica using tcycle=150s
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While some input parameters are fixed, there are some that are
changing periodically or randomly as time elapses. The
processed data can be exported in csv (Comma Separated
Values) format for further evaluation and processing.
The user interface of the developed simulator program can
be seen in Fig.5. The obtained results can be read directly
from the main window of the application.
One of the most important parameters that influences
system runtime is the time required for transmitting
information on the Wi-Fi network and the frequency of these
transmissions. The frequency of the Wi-Fi transmission can be
expressed as
1
f cycle = (2),
t1 + t2 + t3
Fig. 8: System is running continuously for 3 years in Santa Monica using tcycle=180s
In order to emphasize the importance of the Wi-Fi
transmission frequency, three cases are presented using
different sleep (t3) values, with the rest of the parameters kept
constant. The input data for solar irradiation has been provided
by the CIMIS weather station for selected location (Santa
Monica County, Los Angeles). The frequency of transmissions
is indirectly set by the tcycle parameter. Several simulations
have been performed in order to highlight the importance of
this parameter. Any change in tcycle is reflected in the dynamics
of the battery’s voltage and remaining capacity curves. In the
first simulation (see Fig.6.) the battery was discharged and the
system failed to run continuously after 1000 hours. Fig. 7
depicts the system at its limits, failing after 2 years of
continuous running. In the third case (Figure 8), with tcycle set
to 180s the system can be observed running without problems
for 3 years because the amount of harvested energy covers the
power budget of the system.
The importance of the duration of the Wi-Fi transmission
is obvious by looking at the consumption measurements
Fig. 9: Current consumption curve of the circuit using HTTPS call
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during a typical HTTPS call. The results are presented on Fig.
9 with a sampling frequency of 100Hz.
The time needed for data transmission has been optimized
by using the CoAP protocol and the amount of data being sent.
The typical current consumption while posting sensor readings
to a CoAP server is presented on Fig.10. After importing and
processing the data, the energy required to send one message
containing sensor data was calculated to be 1.26Ws or 96mA
average current during 4s timeframe on the 3.3V rail.
IV. OPTIMIZATIONS AND IMPROVEMENTS
Since the required energy was substantially reduced by
moving to CoAP protocol, the possibility of using
supercapacitors instead of rechargeable battery pack has been
investigated. The capacitors were chosen based on market
availability and package size restrictions, the 5.5V rated
supercapacitors turned out to be the best match for our system.
The energy differences in percent of the overall available
Fig. 10: Current consumption curve of the circuit during POST call
using CoAP
Fig. 11: Energy in capacitors C1=2.5F, C2=5F, C3=10F at different voltages Fig. 12: The differential energy using C=2.5F/5.5V capacitor

energy when the supercapacitor discharges between different measured data transmitted with a delay, and the fact that n-1
voltage stages 5V, 4V,.., 1V can be calculated using eq. 3 and set of measurements must be stored before the transmission
observed in Fig.11. sequence begins.
U x2 − U y2 The simulation in Fig. 13 has been performed in order to
E =C⋅ (3), determine the number of available Wi-Fi transmissions with a
2
In eq. 3 C is the capacity, Ux and Uy are the voltages of the fully charged supercapacitor, considering the previously
supercapacitor at different stages during discharge sequence. measured energy consumption during a CoAP POST, which
Fig.12. presents a better understanding of how the differential typically measures 4s. The resulting curve reveals that about
energy in the capacitor between different voltage values is 40 transmissions are possible without recharging the
related to the overall energy available. supercapacitor.
By analyzing the obtained simulation results and in order To achieve lower energy consumption each of the power
to preserve energy, the highest conversion efficiency should states must be optimized. The Wi-Fi transmission state can be
be obtained while the input voltage is high, above 3.3V for optimized by reducing the amount of data that need to be
this system. In the initial approach for n complete cycles the transmitted. The second state can be optimized by running the
energy needed for the system could be summarized as: I2C peripherals at their highest frequency thus reducing the
time needed to gather data from the sensors. The third state
3
can be optimized by cutting off power to the sensors by
E1 = n ⋅ ¦ Pi ⋅ti (4).
i =1
electronic control using electronic switches based on
MOSFET technology.
The conclusion can be drawn, that using these kind of
supercapacitors a Buck-Boost or at least Buck topology should
be considered in order to exploit the most from the available
energy. With reduced energy consumption and/or transmission
frequency the use of supercapacitors can be an alternative
where battery replacement by user intervention can be totally
eliminated. This would make the entire system more compact
and factory sealed. In order to have the same resolution during
data acquisition and reduce the energy consumption at the
same time, the strategy of lowering the Wi-Fi transmission
frequency n times while keeping the measurement or sampling
frequency constant was adopted in the MCU software. The
energy needed for this second approach can be expressed as
E2 = n ⋅ ( P1 ⋅ t1 + P3 ⋅ t3 ) + P2 ⋅ t2 (5).

This approach has the advantage of lower energy

consumption because of the reduced Wi-Fi transmission Fig. 13: Discharge simulation using C=5F/5.5V supercapacitor, 96mA load
frequency, but has the disadvantage of having some of the on 3.3V

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 V. CONCLUSIONS
The energy stored in battery cells or supercapacitors was
estimated by software algorithms based on the energy
harvesting circuit model (solar panel, charger circuit,
converter) and real weather data (solar irradiation). The
estimation aided the reshaping procedure of the data
acquisition algorithm and main program of the MCU in order
to optimize the overall power consumption of the system. This
allows the system to maximize its life cycle during the entire
evolution of the power budget. In practice these simulations
had important influence on the development procedure of
dynamically adaptive power management algorithms, pushing
them towards obtaining real tendencies of survival for long
periods of time. As a result, the software implementation of
the MCU’s main cycle is continuously governed by the actual
and measured energy available of the whole circuit, skipping
or entering subroutines in function of available energy.
The simulation results revealed details regarding a second
energy storage option using supercapacitors instead of
rechargeable batteries. The usage of supercapacitors implies a
more careful definition of the communication timeframes. If
the frequency of transmission is further reduced the possibility
of using supercapacitors can be a viable solution.
A fully functional prototype has been developed in order to
validate the simulation data (Fig.14.).
VI. ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
The purpose of this paper is to highlight the benefits of
presenting power management solutions for battery or
supercapacitor powered IoT devices using renewable energy
source, a valued objective of Green Electronics LLC,
supporting software and hardware development in this domain
since 2010. All methods, results described in this paper are
intellectual property of Green Electronics LLC.
Fig. 14: The prototype circuit during the development procedure
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