Designing Sightseeing Support System in Oku-Nikko Using BLE Beacon

ABSTRACT

We are developing a tourism support application using BLE (Bluetooth Low Energy) beacons in Senjogahara, Oku-Nikko. There are several ways to supply power to a BLE beacon. We decided to use solar-powered since the Oku-Nikko area is on a mountain, and it is not easy to visit there frequently for maintenance. So, we developed a BLE beacon with a small silicon solar cell in 2018. However, during the summer, sunlight is blocked by the leaves of trees, and it is not easy to get enough electricity to drive a BLE beacon. Therefore, we redesigned the BLE beacon using dye-sensitized solar cells to generate electricity with weaker light than ordinary silicon solar cells. We replaced BLE beacons in Senjogahara with the new beacon in 2021. We confirmed that the new BLE beacons work stably even in an environment covered with forests. In this paper, we explain the design of the new BLE beacon and how it works under weak light. © 2022, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.