Wireless sensor network (WSN) suffers the problem of battery consumption, which cannot be replaced in remote regions. Energy harvesting is a prominent technique for the above problem. Energy can be harvested from the external environment like solar energy, wind energy, thermal energy, RF energy, piezoelectric energy, etc. to recharge the batteries which subsequently increases the life of the network. These conventional sources of energy provide energy on a macro scale, but in relation to WSN they need to be carried out on a smaller scale. Energy harvesters may or may not provide the continuous energy to the networks. This area needs to be explored while keeping in mind issues and challenges to meet the requirements of the network. This paper discusses the limitations of WSN, energy harvesting techniques and the issues and challenges in implementing energy harvesting in WSN. Environment, design, size, reliability, performance, resource sharing, hybrid energy harvesting, battery issues, low power and security are some of the major issues and challenges in energy harvesting based WSN.

Wireless Sensor Network, Issues and Challenges, Limitations, Energy Harvesting, Solar harvesting, RF energy harvesting

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