Autonomous Energy Harvesting – Based System for Honeybee Hive Monitoring

Minimizing energy consumption is a key aspect in designing modern IoT ultra-low power systems. An innovative autonomous sensor device, aimed at monitoring the strength of honeybee colonies, powered by using energy harvesting principles via the colony's waste heat, and comprising an array of temperature sensors to assess the size and thus the strength of the colony, is proposed in this work. The colony size is herein determined by measuring the difference between vacant hive areas and those occupied the honeybees. The aim of the work is to study methodologically, by employing artificial intelligence algorithms, the possibility of minimizing the number of the required temperature sensors, resulting in reduced energy consumption of the proposed sensor node. The necessary data is acquired via experimental measurements and thermal imaging and aimed at the highest possible accuracy in displayed thermal gradients. The results of the study will be instrumental in developing a functional autonomous hive monitoring system.