Edgar Saavedra Darriba obtiene el grado de Doctor con mención cum laude

Date: April 2025
Author: Edgar Saavedra Darriba
Thesis Advisor: Prof. Asunción Santamaría Galdón (Full Professor, UPM)
Doctoral Programme: Communication Technologies and Systems
Grade: Cum laude with distinction

Thesis Title:

"On the Trade-Offs Between Energy Harvesting & Wireless Communications for Stand-Alone IoT Devices"

Summary and Key Contributions:

In his doctoral dissertation, Edgar Saavedra Darriba explores one of the most pressing challenges in IoT network deployment: enabling autonomous, sustainable, and maintenance-free devices through the integration of energy harvesting techniques and low-power wireless communication protocols.

The research develops a systematic framework to assess the feasibility of combining ambient energy sources (such as solar, inductive, or RF-based harvesting) with protocols like LoRaWAN, NB-IoT, and Zigbee. A universal testbed was implemented to evaluate energy consumption, latency, reliability, and stability across different configurations and use cases, from smart buildings to remote monitoring and industrial environments.

Main achievements include:

• The design of self-powered IoT devices capable of long-term operation without human intervention.
• An in-depth energy profiling of major IoT communication technologies.
• A benchmark platform for objectively comparing IoT solutions tailored to specific needs.
• Real-world validation within the scope of the European ABIDI project.

This thesis significantly contributes to the advancement of scalable, eco-friendly, and intelligent IoT systems—paving the way toward a more connected and sustainable society.