Multi-hop networking protocol for wide-area energy harvesting sensor network deployments

An energy harvesting node, comprising:

• an energy harvesting device;
• an energy storage device coupled to the energy harvesting device;
• a microcontroller;
• and
• a wireless transceiver coupled to the microcontroller,
• wherein the microcontroller and wireless transceiver are powered by the energy storage device;
• and
• wherein the microcontroller is configured to;
• operate the energy harvesting node in accordance with a predefined communication protocol in which the transceiver transmits a ready to receive (RTR) beacon indicating that the energy harvesting node is awake upon the energy harvesting node upon determining that the energy harvesting node has sufficient energy to receive a data packet from another energy harvesting node of a plurality of energy harvesting nodes and to retransmit the data packet;
• and
• retransmit the data packet to a further node of the plurality of nodes that is physically closer to a destination of the data packet and is a temporally first node of the plurality of nodes to transmit another RTR beacon after the transceiver transmits the RTR beacon.

In a network comprising a server and plurality of nodes including an energy harvesting node, a method of wireless communication employed by the energy harvesting node, comprising:

• remaining in a SLEEP state until the energy harvesting node has determined a predetermined threshold of energy has been harvested;
• upon harvesting the predetermined threshold of energy, entering a TRANSMIT state or a RECEIVE state based on a non-deterministic function;
• in the RECEIVE state,
• transmitting a ready-to-receive (RTR) beacon indicating that the energy harvesting node has harvested the predetermined threshold of energy and is ready to receive data;
• and
• receiving the data from a second node of the plurality of nodes;
• in the TRANSMIT state:
• receiving an RTR beacon from a second node of the plurality of nodes;
• transmitting the data to the second node if no node of the plurality of nodes is transmitting;
• and
• performing a backoff mechanism if any node of the plurality of nodes is transmitting to delay transmitting the data to the second node until a channel is free;
• wherein the energy harvesting node retransmits the data to another of the plurality of nodes that is physically closer to a destination of the data and is a temporally first node of the plurality of nodes to transmit another RTR beacon after the energy harvesting node transmits the RTR beacon.