We propose DSENSE, a mobile wireless charging and sensing platform using drones to alleviate the pain of energy delivery and data gathering in WRSN. Drones in DSENSE are equipped with a wireless charger which can power nodes in remote locations (e.g., embedded in walls, in soil), retrieve and forward sensor data packets to the cloud. This mobile charging and sensing method executed by drones is demonstrated to be effective and efficient – DSENSE successfully drives WRSN-based monitoring services in both a high-rise building and a large farmland. Compared with traditional human operation, not only monitoring time but also the whole system costs has decreased a lot, which brings a new opportunity to the environmental monitoring field.
Figure 1: System architecture
Figure 2: Hardware facility
Figure 3: Field experiments