Polycrystalline silicon photovoltaic harvesting for indoor IoT systems under red-far red artificial light

This paper aims at demonstrating the feasibility of a LoRaWAN-based sensor node for temperature monitoring, autonomously powered by a polycrystalline silicon photovoltaic module with possible applications within the Internet of Things (IoT) domain in the horticulture field. The commercial solar cell was characterized under two light sources: a conventional white 4000 K Light Emitting Diode (LED) and a red and far red (R:FR) lamp peaked at 655 nm and 730 nm. The sensor node is equipped with a RFM95x LoRa transceiver which proved to be a valid technology in those application scenarios where robustness and low power consumption are required. The energy harvesting features are performed by a nano-power boost charger buck converter which deals with the power extraction from the photovoltaic module, the LiPo battery charging/discharging management and the supply of the sensor node. Field tests demonstrate that under R:FR light source, the energy self-sufficiency of the system is achieved: a positive balance between the battery charge and discharge is measured, sufficient both for the node working operation and for the battery charging.