Resource Allocation in Wireless Networks with RF Energy Harvesting and Transfer

Radio frequency (RF) energy harvesting and transfer techniques have recently become alternative methods to power the next generation of wireless networks. As this emerging technology enables proactive replenishment of wireless devices, it is advantageous in supporting applications with quality-of-service (QoS) requirement. This article focuses on the resource allocation issues in wireless networks with RF energy harvesting capability, referred to as RF energy harvesting networks (RF-EHNs). First, we present an overview of the RF-EHNs, followed by a review of a variety of issues regarding resource allocation. Then, we present a case study of designing in the receiver operation policy, which is of paramount importance in the RF-EHNs. We focus on QoS support and service differentiation, which have not been addressed by previous literatures. Furthermore, we outline some open research directions.Comment: To appear in IEEE Networ

Power Efficient and Secure Full-Duplex Wireless Communication Systems

In this paper, we study resource allocation for a full-duplex (FD) radio base station serving multiple half-duplex (HD) downlink and uplink users simultaneously. The considered resource allocation algorithm design is formulated as a non-convex optimization problem taking into account minimum required receive signal-to-interference-plus-noise ratios (SINRs) for downlink and uplink communication and maximum tolerable SINRs at potential eavesdroppers. The proposed optimization framework enables secure downlink and uplink communication via artificial noise generation in the downlink for interfering the potential eavesdroppers. We minimize the weighted sum of the total downlink and uplink transmit power by jointly optimizing the downlink beamformer, the artificial noise covariance matrix, and the uplink transmit power. We adopt a semidefinite programming (SDP) relaxation approach to obtain a tractable solution for the considered problem. The tightness of the SDP relaxation is revealed by examining a sufficient condition for the global optimality of the solution. Simulation results demonstrate the excellent performance achieved by the proposed scheme and the significant transmit power savings enabled optimization of the artificial noise covariance matrix.Comment: 6 pages, invited paper, IEEE Conference on Communications and Network Security (CNS) 2015 in Florence, Italy, on September 30, 201

A Survey of Physical Layer Security Techniques for 5G Wireless Networks and Challenges Ahead

Physical layer security which safeguards data confidentiality based on the information-theoretic approaches has received significant research interest recently. The key idea behind physical layer security is to utilize the intrinsic randomness of the transmission channel to guarantee the security in physical layer. The evolution towards 5G wireless communications poses new challenges for physical layer security research. This paper provides a latest survey of the physical layer security research on various promising 5G technologies, including physical layer security coding, massive multiple-input multiple-output, millimeter wave communications, heterogeneous networks, non-orthogonal multiple access, full duplex technology, etc. Technical challenges which remain unresolved at the time of writing are summarized and the future trends of physical layer security in 5G and beyond are discussed.Comment: To appear in IEEE Journal on Selected Areas in Communication

Max-min Fair Wireless Energy Transfer for Secure Multiuser Communication Systems

This paper considers max-min fairness for wireless energy transfer in a downlink multiuser communication system. Our resource allocation design maximizes the minimum harvested energy among multiple multiple-antenna energy harvesting receivers (potential eavesdroppers) while providing quality of service (QoS) for secure communication to multiple single-antenna information receivers. In particular, the algorithm design is formulated as a non-convex optimization problem which takes into account a minimum required signal-to-interference-plus-noise ratio (SINR) constraint at the information receivers and a constraint on the maximum tolerable channel capacity achieved by the energy harvesting receivers for a given transmit power budget. The proposed problem formulation exploits the dual use of artificial noise generation for facilitating efficient wireless energy transfer and secure communication. A semidefinite programming (SDP) relaxation approach is exploited to obtain a global optimal solution of the considered problem. Simulation results demonstrate the significant performance gain in harvested energy that is achieved by the proposed optimal scheme compared to two simple baseline schemes.Comment: 5 pages, invited paper, IEEE Information Theory Workshop 2014, Hobart, Tasmania, Australia, Nov. 201