Manifestation of Flexible p–i–n Solar Cells Fabricated Using HWCVD in WSN Application

The wireless sensor network (WSN) consist of battery-powered sensor nodes which are self-configured and are deployed for monitoring several physical or environmental conditions such as temperature, pressure, humidity, vibration, pollutants etc. The major constraint in most of the WSN applications is the replacement/recharging of the battery contained by the node once it gets exhausted. This limitation reduces the lifetime of WSN. The placement of energy harvesting device within the sensor node may be the best probable solution to recharge the exhausted battery. In this paper, the integration of low cost, light weight and foldable flexible solar cells with WSN has been focused. The aim of this paper is to fabricate the flexible solar cells and showing the potential use of them in WSN. Moreover, the use of flexible solar cell is the better selection for emerging wearable WSN. This paper also describes the various issues in the already developed energy harvesting models and suggested a self-powered model for energy management based on finite state machine (FSM). The proposed models completely avoid the overcharging and the frequent charging of the batteries. This optimal utilization of the battery maximizes the lifetime of WSN network. In the proposed model, the flexible p–i–n solar cells are used to convert solar energy into electrical energy that can charge the battery of the WSN node. Finally, it can be concluded that the node will continue to function actively till the battery lifetime i.e. approximately 25–30 years.