PhD in Mechatronics And Control Engineering

United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 15 aims to protect terrestrial ecosystems, manage forests sustainably, combat desertification, and halt biodiversity loss. Achieving this requires a deeper understanding of how environmental changes affect biodiversity, particularly through accurate microclimate monitoring. Forests, which host two-thirds of terrestrial life, exhibit highly variable microclimates that demand dense sensor networks and reliable data retrieval.\nThis project focuses on developing nature-inspired hardware to deploy Internet of Things (IoT) sensors in forest ecosystems. Combining traditional forecasting with IoT offers a cost-effective, long-term solution for continuous environmental monitoring. Central to this approach is the use of self-powered sensing (SPS) nodes, which harvest ambient energy and transmit data wirelessly, minimising human intervention and enabling monitoring in remote terrains.\nSPS nodes can measure key environmental parameters such as temperature, humidity, soil moisture, and CO₂ levels. The proposed research will design an autonomous SPS node integrating bespoke energy harvesters (electromagnetic or piezoelectric) with sensors. The final deliverable will be a hardware demonstrator tested under real environmental conditions, contributing to smarter, more sustainable ecosystem management and supporting statutory obligations for innovative environmental monitoring.