Motivated by the events of Sept. 11, 2001, back in 2002 we proposed to use wireless technology for locating survivors of structural collapse. The proposed architecture included a network of wireless tags that would allow acquiring information from trapped survivors. While that work presented theoretical results in the area of energy efficient routing, the convergence of ultra-low-power communications and energy-harvesting technologies will soon enable realizing the vision of self-powered networked nodes.
Our activities in this area take place within the multi-PI Energy Harvesting Active Network Tags (EnHANTs) project. EnHANTs will be small, flexible, and energetically self-reliant devices that can be attached to objects that are traditionally not networked (e.g., books, furniture, walls, doors, toys, keys, clothing, and produce), thereby providing the infrastructure for various novel tracking applications. Examples of these applications include locating misplaced items and continuous monitoring of objects (items in a store, boxes in transit). As such, EnHANTs will be one of the enablers for the Internet of Things (IoT) and for Cyber Physical Systems.
In order for EnHANTs to rely on harvested energy, they have to spend significantly less energy than existing low-power wireless technologies (e.g, Bluetooth, Zigbee). Moreover, the energy harvesting components and the ultra-low-power physical layer have special characteristics whose implications on the higher layers have yet to be studied. Hence, in the EnHANTs project we seek to design hardware, algorithms, and software to overcome the challenges posed by these special characteristics.
Within this project, the WiMNet Lab focuses on the development and performance evaluation of resource allocation algorithms. The design of such algorithms requires nontraditional approaches, since energy harvesting shifts the nature of energy-aware protocols from prolonging the lifespan of a device to enabling perpetual life. Moreover, different algorithmic approaches are required for supporting different types of energy storage devices (i.e., battery and capacitor) and different harvesting environments. To support the algorithms’ development, we experimentally characterized energy availability in various environments. In particular, we conducted a long-term indoor light energy measurement campaign (the collected traces are available via CRAWDAD) and a measurement campaign to characterize kinetic energy availability. Based on the measurement results, we developed and evaluated algorithms for time fair energy allocation in networks with predictable and stochastic energy inputs, and with different types of energy storage devices.
Our other focus area is the design of EnHANT prototypes and testbed and in particular software development and software and hardware integration. The prototypes have been developed in a multi-lab interdisciplinary effort and prototype demonstrations took place in 6 conferences. A testbed composed of the prototypes received the ACM SenSys 2011 Best Student Demo Award (the video below shows that version of the testbed) and we have been using the prototypes to experimentally evaluate the performance of energy harvesting adaptive algorithms.
Overall, our measurement-based, theoretical, and experimental studies provide a fundamental understanding of the design tradeoffs in networks of rechargeable nodes. A recording of a talk in which Maria Gorlatova presents various aspects of our work is available online.
T. Chen, “Algorithms and experimentation for future wireless networks: From Internet-of-things to full-duplex,” Ph.D. Thesis, Columbia University, 2020.
J. Ostrometzky, A. Bernstein, and G. Zussman, “Irradiance field reconstruction from partial observability of solar radiation,” IEEE Geoscience and Remote Sensing Letters, vol. 16, no. 11, pp. 1698–1702, Nov. 2019.
D. Rubenstein, G. Zussman, J. Ghaderi, R. Margolies, T. Chen, and G. Grebla, “Systems and methods for throughput enhancement among ultra-low power wireless network devices, U.S. Patent US 10,200,956 B2.” Feb-2019.
T. Chen, J. Ghaderi, D. Rubenstein, and G. Zussman, “Maximizing broadcast throughput under ultra-low-power constraints,” IEEE/ACM Transactions on Networking, vol. 26, no. 2, pp. 779–792, Apr. 2018.
J. Chen, Y. Gu, and G. Zussman, “Guest Editorial - Special issue on autonomous battery-free sensing and communication,” ACM Trans. on Embedded Computing Systems, vol. 17, no. 1, Sep. 2017.
J. Marasevic, C. Stein, and G. Zussman, “Max-min fair rate allocation and routing in energy harvesting networks: Algorithmic analysis,” Algorithmica, vol. 78, no. 2, pp. 521–557, Jun. 2017.
T. Chen, J. Ghaderi, D. Rubenstein, and G. Zussman, “Performance evaluation of Energy-Constrained Broadcast (EconCast) in wireless networks,” in Proc. IEEE WCNC’17 Workshop on Energy Harvesting and Remotely Powered Wireless Communications for the IoT (invited), 2017.
R. Margolies, G. Grebla, T. Chen, D. Rubenstein, and G. Zussman, “Panda: Neighbor discovery on a power harvesting budget,” IEEE Journal on Selected Areas in Communications, Green Communications and Networking Series, vol. 34, no. 12, pp. 3606–3619, Dec. 2016.
T. Chen, G. Chen, S. Jain, R. Margolies, G. Grebla, D. Rubenstein, and G. Zussman, “Demo abstract: Power-aware neighbor discovery for energy harvesting things,” in Proc. ACM SenSys’16, 2016.
R. Margolies, G. Grebla, T. Chen, D. Rubenstein, and G. Zussman, “Panda: Neighbor discovery on a power harvesting budget,” in Proc. IEEE INFOCOM’16, 2016.
R. Margolies, M. Gorlatova, J. Sarik, G. Stanje, J. Zhu, P. Miller, M. Szczodrak, B. Vigraham, L. Carloni, P. Kinget, I. Kymissis, and G. Zussman, “Energy harvesting active networked tags (EnHANTs): Prototyping and experimentation,” ACM Transactions on Sensor Networks, vol. 11, no. 4, p. 62:1-62:27, Nov. 2015.
R. Margolies, “Resource allocation for the Internet of Everything: from energy harvesting tags to cellular networks,” Ph.D. Thesis, Columbia University, 2015.
M. Gorlatova, J. Sarik, G. Grebla, M. Cong, I. Kymissis, and G. Zussman, “Movers and shakers: Kinetic energy harvesting for the Internet of things,” IEEE Journal on Selected Areas in Communications, Special Issue on Wireless Communications Powered by Energy Harvesting and Wireless Energy Transfer, vol. 33, no. 8, pp. 1624–1639, Aug. 2015.
R. Margolies, M. Gorlatova, J. Sarik, P. Kinget, I. Kymissis, and G. Zussman, “Project-based learning within a large-Scale interdisciplinary research effort,” arXiv:1410.6935 [cs.CY], Oct. 2014.
J. Marasevic, C. Stein, and G. Zussman, “Max-min fair rate allocation and routing in energy harvesting networks: Algorithmic analysis,” in Proc. ACM MOBIHOC’14, 2014.
M. Gorlatova, J. Sarik, G. Grebla, M. Cong, I. Kymissis, and G. Zussman, “Movers and shakers: Kinetic energy harvesting for the Internet of things,” in Proc. ACM SIGMETRICS’14, 2014.
J. Sarik, K. Kim, M. Gorlatova, I. Kymissis, and G. Zussman, “More than meets the eye - A portable measurement unit for characterizing light energy availability,” in Proc. IEEE GlobalSIP’13 Symp. on Energy Harvesting and Green Wireless Communications, 2013.
M. Gorlatova, A. Wallwater, and G. Zussman, “Networking low-power energy harvesting devices: Measurements and algorithms,” IEEE Transactions on Mobile Computing, vol. 12, no. 9, pp. 1853–1865, Sep. 2013.
[download] IEEE Communications Society Young Author Best Paper Award
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M. Gorlatova, J. Sarik, P. Kinget, I. Kymissis, and G. Zussman, “Project-based learning within a large-scale interdiciplinary research effort,” in Proc. ACM Conference on Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education (ACM ITiCSE’13), 2013.
R. Margolies, L. Pena, K. Kim, Y. Kim, M. Wang, M. Gorlatova, J. Sarik, J. Zhu, P. Kinget, I. Kymissis, and G. Zussman, “An adaptive testbed of energy harvesting active networked tags (EnHANTs) prototypes,” in Demo description in Proc. IEEE INFOCOM’13, 2013.
M. Gorlatova, R. Margolies, J. Sarik, G. Stanje, J. Zhu, B. Vigraham, M. Szczodrak, L. Carloni, P. Kinget, I. Kymissis, and G. Zussman, “Prototyping energy harvesting active networked tags (EnHANTs),” in Proc. IEEE INFOCOM’13 mini-conference, 2013.
Y. Afsar, J. Sarik, M. Gorlatova, G. Zussman, and I. Kymissis, “Evaluating photovoltaic performance indoors,” in Proc. 38th IEEE Photovoltaic Specialist Conference (PVSC38), 2012.
G. Stanje, P. Miller, J. Zhu, A. Smith, O. Winn, R. Margolies, M. Gorlatova, J. Sarik, M. Szczodrak, B. Vigraham, L. Carloni, P. Kinget, I. Kymissis, and G. Zussman, “Demo: Organic solar cell-equipped energy harvesting active networked tag (EnHANT) prototypes,” in Proc. ACM SenSys’11, 2011.
A. Zimmerman, J. Lynch, G. Zussman, and D. Rubenstein, “An intelligent wireless structural health monitoring solution,” in Proc. 8th Int. Workshop on Structural Health Monitoring, 2011.
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J. Zhu, G. Stanje, R. Margolies, M. Gorlatova, J. Sarik, Z. Noorbhaiwala, P. Miller, M. Szczodrak, B. Vigraham, L. Carloni, P. Kinget, I. Kymissis, and G. Zussman, “Demo: Prototyping UWB-enabled EnHANTs,” in Proc. ACM MobiSys’11, 2011.
M. Gorlatova, A. Wallwater, and G. Zussman, “Networking low-power energy harvesting devices: Measurements and algorithms,” in Proc. IEEE INFOCOM’11, 2011.
M. Gorlatova, A. Bernstein, and G. Zussman, “Performance evaluation of resource allocation policies for energy harvesting devices,” in Proc. IEEE WiOpt’11, 2011.
M. Gorlatova, A. Bernstein, and G. Zussman, “Performance evaluation of resource allocation policies for energy harvesting devices,” Columbia University, Electrical Engineering, Tech. report 2011-01-05, Jan. 2011.
M. Gorlatova, P. Kinget, I. Kymissis, D. Rubenstein, X. Wang, and G. Zussman, “Energy harvesting active networked tags (EnHANTs) for ubiquitous object networking,” IEEE Wireless Communications, Special Issue on the Internet of Things: The Next Big Thing in Communications, vol. 17, no. 6, pp. 18–25, Dec. 2010.
[download] IEEE Communications Society Award for Advances in Communications
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M. Gorlatova, Z. Noorbhaiwala, A. Skolnik, J. Sarik, M. Zapas, M. Szczodrak, J. Chen, L. Carloni, P. Kinget, I. Kymissis, and G. Zussman, “Prototyping energy harvesting active networked tags: Phase II MICA mote-based devices,” in Demo at ACM MobiCom’10, 2010.
M. Gorlatova, T. Sharma, D. Shrestha, E. Xu, J. Chen, A. Skolnik, D. Piao, P. Kinget, I. Kymissis, D. Rubenstein, and G. Zussman, “Prototyping energy harvesting active networked tags (EnHANTs) with MICA2 motes,” in Demo description in Proc. IEEE SECON’10, 2010.
M. Gorlatova, P. Kinget, I. Kymissis, D. Rubenstein, X. Wang, and G. Zussman, “Challenge: Ultra-low-power energy-harvesting active networked tags (EnHANTs),” in Proc. ACM MOBICOM’09, 2009.
H. Wymeersch, G. Zussman, and M. Z. Win, “SNR analysis of multi-rate IR-UWB over frequency-selective channels,” in Proc. IEEE International Conference on Ultra-Wideband (ICUWB’07), 2007.
G. Zussman and A. Segall, “Energy efficient routing algorithms for acquiring information from smart badges,” in Proc. IEEE 1st Workshop on Disaster Recovery Networks (Diren’02), 2002.
