Energy efficiency and accuracy of solar powered BLE beacons

In the last decade, there has been an exponential growth in the numbers of wireless devices which connect to the Internet. At the same time, the networks size have grown larger than ever before. Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) beacons are an attractive solution for a plethora of Internet of Things (IoT) applications, from micro localization to advertisement and transportation. BLE beacons are small, low cost devices that are capable of providing contextual and locational information to the users. In the fifth generation (5G) ecosystem, many BLE beacons are expected to be deployed among other devices. In 5G wireless networks era, sustainable and energy aware networks are vital to usability and performance. An appealing solution for energy efficiency is energy harvesting for wireless devices. To reduce the maintenance and increase the lifespan of networks that include such devices, solar powered beacons can be used. In this paper, the performance of solar powered BLE beacons is examined in terms of energy efficiency and accuracy. A comparison between the solar powered BLE beacon and battery powered beacon is also discussed. Experimental results shown that solar powered BLE beacon is a promising solution with minimum energy requirements and high accuracy.