Energy harvesting Communication netwoRks: OPtimization and demonStration

Technology evangelists use the catch-phrase "Anytime, anywhere, anything" when they promise untethered wireless data flow not only among people, but also among devices of any imaginable sort.

Wireless networks offer a solution to the solve wiring problem, but powering such systems requires increasing amounts of energy, and also introduces the constraint of changing and recharging millions of batteries.

In order to achieve the vision of a seamlessly integrated data and knowledge centric world we must solve the issue of a sustainable replenishment of power to the digital world that can be addressed both by reducing the power consumption of the devices that we use and of harvesting energy if possible on board the devices themselves through energy harvesting.

This project will develop a principled understanding of communication networks which live on energy, so that system designs can be optimised by considering energy harvesting in conjunction with data processing and communications. We will develop methods for system design that allows adaptationion of network to changes in the available energy, as well as to the distribution of the energy within the network itself. The project will also develop novel vibration and thermal energy harvesters, and appropriate storage units.

All these aspects will be integrated into an overall practical wireless network test-bed to demonstrate and test the concepts studied in the project.

The partners of this project have been assembled based on research goals, scientific excellence and complementarity and includes all the expertise required for the success of the project, with an active researcher at each level of the required networking architecture. Moreover, participating researchers have a wide spectrum of research experience enabling interdisciplinary collaboration and balanced distribution of seniority with several researchers in the first five years of their PhDs, and senior level distinguished researchers whose experience able to impact the development of the junior researchers. The major impact will be achieved in:
- Multi-disciplinarity: E-CROPS brings together challenges from three key disciplines to the service of a unique "truly green" ICT design objective. They are 1) information and communication theory, 2) queuing and networking theory, and 3) energy-harvesting device design and modeling. It is to be noted that many previous green ICT related projects have focused on improving the energy efficiency of conventional physical layer and MAC layer mechanisms by adding on innovation at the communication theoretic level (better codes, MIMO antennas etc.). In contrast, the E-CROPS network design assumes from the start a scarce and non-uniform network of energy supplies which is consistent with the increased use of renewable sources of energy in the future.
- Contribution at the European level: As competition between the once dominant European telecom industry and its north American and especially Asian counterparts is getting fiercer every year, the repositioning of European skills towards technology sectors where Europe can keep a competitive edge is a key strategic move. The design of energy saving wireless networks is one such sector, and especially important for future generations of systems. Research on energy harvesting systems is heavily funded in the US and Japan, and very recently there have been a project supported by the NSF in the US on the theoretical design of energy harvesting networks (see http://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/ showAward.do?AwardNumber=0964632). We believe that our proposal is very timely for Europe not to fall behind in this area of research and development.
- High quality dissemination: The partners have a track record of highly cited papers. ECROPS will disseminate its results in the form of fundamental guidelines via high quality papers that will help to pave the way for European industry partners to design the best possible green ICT solutions. Chaired by Dr. Gunduz, CTTC has hosted the first Blue Communications Workshop (http://bluecommunications.cttc.es/) on energy efficient communications in June 2011, which brought together many European researchers and American counterparts, including participation by the ERANET, and we expect that we continue this annual programme.