Electric Potential (EP) signals are produced in plants through intracellular processes, in response to external stimuli (e.g. watering, acquisition of nutrients etc.). Wireless transmission of the biological electrical signals from multiple plants is critical for the realization of precise monitoring schemes for each individual plant. However, wireless transmission of a massive amount of EP signals (from one or multiple plants) is hindered by existing, battery-operated wireless technology and increased, associated monetary cost. A self powered, battery-less EP transmitter was presented that harvests near-maximum energy from the plant itself and transmits the EP signal tens-of-meters away with a single switch, based on inherently low-cost and low-power bistatic scatter radio principles. The proposed low cost, battery-less “plant-as-sensor-and-battery” approach, enables large-scale electrophysiology studies of important socio-economic impact in ecology, plant biology, as well as precision agriculture.

The flexible photovoltaic (PV) modules have the advantage of easily fitting on curved surfaces, but in that case their power–voltage characteristic exhibits local maximum power points (MPPs) where the PV module power production is suboptimal. In the context of this work, the effect of geometrical installation parameters of flexible PV modules, such as the bending angle, tilt angle, and orientation, on the shape of the power–voltage characteristic is experimentally investigated. Furthermore, a new method of tracking the global MPP of flexible PV modules is proposed. An experimental, comparative study is also presented, which demonstrates that the system which is proposed is capable to detect the global MPP of a flexible PV module with less search steps compared to the past-proposed MPP tracking (MPPT) techniques.

The Acoustic Localization Network. is a simple localization testbed using acoustic waves and the iCubes Wireless Sensor Network platform. This was a semester project for the TEL412 "Analysis and Design (Synthesis) of Telecom Modules", Fall of 2011-2012 at ECE Department, TUC. The provided testbed is designed with low-cost, custom audio ranging electronics, RF communication and easy-to-use, Matlab interface that allows quick experimentation with various localization algorithms.