Design and energy optimization of a multifunctional IoT solution for connected bikes

IoT systems face a severe energy autonomy challenge in keeping electronics alive without massive and heavy batteries, pressing for the development of efficient ultra low power architectures and energy harvesting solutions. In this paper we present a new IoT system designed for long-term tracking applications of personal vehicles and moving assets, such as bicycles and carts. The system integrates Cellular, GNSS and BLE communication technologies that enable the implementation of a wide set of geo-aware tracking and fitness monitoring applications. Power consumption minimization is one of the main goals and design challenges for the presented system. This paper focuses on methods and techniques for power consumption optimization at the hardware and software level. We present the design of a miniature kinetic energy harvesting solution and of system architectures for leakage currents minimization and ultra-low power consumption. Results obtained in both simulation and in-field experiments demonstrate high efficiency and performance of the proposed solution, resulting in energy neutral performance of continuous tracking task.