ENERGY HARVESTING AWARE VLSI ARCHITECTURE FOR IOT NODES

Abstract

The rapid expansion of the Internet of Things (IoT) has led to the deployment of billions of sensor nodes operating in power-constrained and battery-dependent environments, creating challenges related to energy sustainability, maintenance cost, and system longevity. To address these issues, this work proposes an energy harvesting–aware VLSI architecture designed specifically for next-generation IoT nodes. The architecture integrates ultra-low-power digital processing with adaptive power management and multisource energy harvesting mechanisms, enabling continuous operation through ambient energy sources such as solar, vibration, RF, and thermal gradients. A dynamic energy allocation module regulates workload distribution based on harvested energy levels, ensuring optimal performance even under fluctuating power availability. The proposed VLSI design employs clock gating, power gating, voltage scaling, and near-threshold computing techniques to significantly reduce power consumption without compromising computational reliability. Experimental evaluation demonstrates improved energy efficiency, extended operational lifetime, low leakage power, reduced latency, and enhanced selfsufficiency compared to conventional IoT processor architectures. Overall, the proposed energy harvesting–aware VLSI architecture offers a sustainable pathway toward battery-less, maintenance-free IoT systems, enabling autonomous sensing and computation for smart environments and future largescale deployments