Among the most pressing challenges toward realizing the full potential of the global IoT is the question of power for the billions of battery-operated sensors that will make up these new connected environments. Inherent constraints in current power-supplying technologies raise concerns not only for battery cost and performance life, but also for the unavoidable invasions of physical infrastructure that are typically required to maintain battery-powered sensors in residential and M2M applications. Low-power capability may be the biggest barrier to the full instrumentation of the physical world, but new techniques for power generation and management are evolving, as are energy harvesting technologies, which may offer the most promising solution to the IoT power conundrum. Sensors that can intelligently store energy, regenerate themselves after dissipation, and expend only the minimum power required per operating instance, represent the vanguard of next-generation sensor designs.
