[CUWiN-Dev] [jones@ifp.uiuc.edu: Re: Solar-powered network nodes]

[Wendy Edwards]

Hi, I asked Doug Jones about solar-powered network nodes, and he
was very helpful.  His response is below.

Wendy

----- Forwarded message from "Douglas L. Jones" <jones at ifp.uiuc.edu> -----

Date: Mon, 3 Jul 2006 10:21:45 -0500 (CDT)
From: "Douglas L. Jones" <jones at ifp.uiuc.edu>
To: Wendy Edwards <wedwards at uiuc.edu>
cc: dl-jones at uiuc.edu, arockett at uiuc.edu, sachs at uiuc.edu
Subject: Re: Solar-powered network nodes
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Dear Ms. Edwards:

Thanks for asking about solar-powered wireless network nodes.  Our work
has only been in the very low power regime (nodes wake up only
occasionally to send low-rate information like temperature) and won't
scale up to the needs of an 802.11/WiFi-type node.  My reserach area is
primarily applied mathematics, so I don't have general knowledge about
solar power that could be useful.  I do, however, have a friend, Prof.
Angus Rockett from Material Science and Engineering Department, whose
main area of research is solar cells; he might be more useful to you.
Bear in mind that we're all professors, so our knowledge tends to be
more about what might be possible in 20 years, rather than what you
can buy right now and which brand is best!

Like anyone who has been out on the highways this summer, I have
driven past a lot of warning signs, etc., that are solar powered.
I presume that these systems have a solar panel, a rechargable battery,
and an electronic power management system that converts the power from the
solar panel into the form needed by the battery.  I believe that all of
these things are easily available commercially and can be found on the
internet, either in individual component form or as a complete unit; ones
of the size needed for those signs should be ample for the needs of a
CUWIN node.  Furthermore, I think this is the best that current technology
offers, and I can't offhand think of any alternative that might be better
for your application, at least as I imagine it.  This is "good" news from
a practical point of view; what you need is "standard" and esily
commercially available, which means you can get something reliable that's
inexpensive, relative to having to create your own technology.  The bad
part is that if what's out there isn't small enough or cheap enough or
whatever enough for your needs, then the best researchers in the world
have as of yet failed to achieve what you need, and there are no easy
alternatives.

I just Googles solar power, and here's one of the advertisement links:
http://www.mrsolar.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=SFNT&Store_Code=MSOS&Affiliate=google
I don't know whether or not these are good prices, but this should
give you an idea of the kinds of things that are available and the
range of prices.

Best wishes with your project!

Doug


On Mon, 26 Jun 2006, Wendy Edwards wrote:

> Hi, Dr. Jones.
>
> One of your (former) students, Dan Sachs, suggested that I ask you
> about solar-powered network nodes.  I'm a grad student in Library and
> Information Science, and an occasional volunteer with the CU
> Wireless Networking Initiative (CUWIN).  Anyhow, I've been interested
> in disaster recovery, particularly in ways of setting up communications
> when power, telephone lines, etc. aren't available.
>
> Thanks,
> Wendy Edwards
>

----- End forwarded message -----