Vast armies of sensors are crucial to feeding IIoT monitoring and analysis applications. Powering these edge nodes is increasingly a channel. Even though modern microcontrollers exhibit ultra-low power consumption characteristics, a battery would need to be replaced at some stage, the total cost of which is typically more than the sensor. Provisioning line/mains power infrastructure is equally expensive.
How about energy harvesting? Could this provide a viable power source? What about harvesting ambient RF energy?
In this video, we investigate the potential for powering IIoT sensors using this approach.