Energy-Efficient Bootstrapping in Multi-hop Harvesting-Based Networks

Short-range multi-hop communication is an energy-efficient way to collect, share, and distribute large amounts of data with Internet of Things (IoT) systems. Nevertheless, the resource demands of wireless communication impose a burden on battery-operated IoT nodes, limiting their lifetime. Energy harvesting can address the energy limitation but introduces significant power variability, which affects reliable operation causing nodes to disconnect and join the network repeatedly. To mitigate this, we present Dual-Range Bootstrapping (DRB), a new mechanism for bootstrapping harvesting-based IoT nodes in multi-hop networks. DRB has both a very low and predictable energy cost, key properties for efficient energy management of harvesting-based nodes. We demonstrate DRB's effectiveness in numerous scenarios using LoRa and FSK modulations, leveraging the former's long range and the latter's high data rate. We experimentally evaluate DRB with energy measurements performed on a communication testbed. Lastly, we use real-world energy harvesting traces to simulate the long-term behavior of a harvesting-based network.