The Master’s thesis analyzes energy consumption of WiFi modules, which serve to connect devices pertaining to the Internet of Things with the internet. In the context of the thesis, I have reviewed over 200 WiFi modules online and reduced the number of modules to 28 according to certain criteria outlined beforehand. Of the remaining 28 WiFi modules, I selected 4 that I have thoroughly examined and used for various measurements. For measurement purposes, I connected the modules with a test environment via an SPI interface and implemented the necessary software drivers on the microcontroller with ARM architecture. To measure energy consumption, I used a digital flow meter with a sampling frequency up to 20 kHz and an accuracy of the 300 μA order, for which I implemented a library in the Python programming language. I concentrated on the energy consumption using WPA2 encryption, since data security is always of utmost importance. The results of the measurements have shown that despite having comparable specifications, WiFi modules differ greatly between different manufacturers in terms of actual energy consumption. Additionally, the complexity of controlling WiFi modules also varies from manufacturer to manufacturer, which affects costs and development time.

Magistrska naloga obravnava problematiko energijske porabe modulov WiFi, ki služijo za povezavo z internetom pri napravah interneta stvari. V sklopu naloge sem preko spleta pregledal preko 200 modulov WiFi, nato sem seznam po v naprej določenih grobih kriterijih skrčil na 28 modulov. Od preostalih 28 modulov WiFi sem izbral 4, ki sem jih nato temeljito preučil ter uporabil v meritvah. Za potrebe meritev sem module priklopil na testno okolje preko vmesnika SPI in implementiral potrebne programske gonilnike na mikro krmilniku z arhitekturo ARM. Za meritev porabe sem uporabil digitalni tokovni merilnik s frekvenco vzorčenja do 20 kHz in natančnostjo reda 300 μA, za katerega sem implementiral knjižnico v skriptnem jeziku python. Osredotočil sem se na porabo energije pri uporabi enkripcije WPA2, ker je varnost podatkov vedno zahtevana. Rezultati meritve so pokazali, da se kljub primerljivim specifikacijam porabe modulov WiFi med različnimi proizvajalci, dejanska poraba energije zelo razlikuje. Poleg tega pa se od proizvajalca do proizvajalca razlikuje tudi zapletenost krmiljenja modulov WiFi, kar vpliva na stroške in čas razvoja.