Towards Sustainable IoT: An AI-Driven Framework for Enhanced Energy Harvesting in Wireless Sensor Networks
Growing deployment of Internet of Things (IoT) ecosystems has intensified concerns regarding long-term energy sustainability and environmental impact. Large-scale deployment of wireless sensor networks (WSNs) demands intelligent energy management strategies beyond conventional battery-based solutions However reliance on traditional batteries faces challenges such as limited lifespan, high costs of replacement in remote areas, and environmental impact of battery disposal. This paper proposes an AI-driven framework integrates hybrid energy harvesting mechanisms with Deep Reinforcement Learning (DRL) to optimize energy efficiency in IoT systems. The proposed model employs a Deep Q-Network (DQN) to dynamically regulate sensing, transmission, and sleep operations based on system states. By modeling energy management as a Markov Decision Process (MDP), the framework enables adaptive decision-making under uncertain and fluctuating harvesting conditions. Experimental results show that the proposed framework achieves up to 300% improvement in network lifetime under low-energy harvesting conditions, with an average improvement of 168% and 41.5% higher energy utilization efficiency than static policies. This work presents a scalable framework for Green IoT networks with TinyML feasibility (~2,500 parameters), though hardware validation on microcontrollers remains future work.