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

Finite-Horizon Optimal Transmission Policies for Energy Harvesting Sensors

In this paper, we derive optimal transmission policies for energy harvesting sensors to maximize the utility obtained over a finite horizon. First, we consider a single energy harvesting sensor, with discrete energy arrival process, and a discrete energy consumption policy. Under this model, we show that the optimal finite horizon policy is a threshold policy, and explicitly characterize the thresholds, and the thresholds can be precomputed using a recursion. Next, we address the case of multiple sensors, with only one of them allowed to transmit at any given time to avoid interference, and derive an explicit optimal policy for this scenario as well.Comment: Appeared in IEEE ICASSP 201

Energy Harvesting Wireless Communications: A Review of Recent Advances

This article summarizes recent contributions in the broad area of energy harvesting wireless communications. In particular, we provide the current state of the art for wireless networks composed of energy harvesting nodes, starting from the information-theoretic performance limits to transmission scheduling policies and resource allocation, medium access and networking issues. The emerging related area of energy transfer for self-sustaining energy harvesting wireless networks is considered in detail covering both energy cooperation aspects and simultaneous energy and information transfer. Various potential models with energy harvesting nodes at different network scales are reviewed as well as models for energy consumption at the nodes.Comment: To appear in the IEEE Journal of Selected Areas in Communications (Special Issue: Wireless Communications Powered by Energy Harvesting and Wireless Energy Transfer

Power-Optimal Feedback-Based Random Spectrum Access for an Energy Harvesting Cognitive User

In this paper, we study and analyze cognitive radio networks in which secondary users (SUs) are equipped with Energy Harvesting (EH) capability. We design a random spectrum sensing and access protocol for the SU that exploits the primary link's feedback and requires less average sensing time. Unlike previous works proposed earlier in literature, we do not assume perfect feedback. Instead, we take into account the more practical possibilities of overhearing unreliable feedback signals and accommodate spectrum sensing errors. Moreover, we assume an interference-based channel model where the receivers are equipped with multi-packet reception (MPR) capability. Furthermore, we perform power allocation at the SU with the objective of maximizing the secondary throughput under constraints that maintain certain quality-of-service (QoS) measures for the primary user (PU)

Finite Horizon Online Lazy Scheduling with Energy Harvesting Transmitters over Fading Channels

Lazy scheduling, i.e. setting transmit power and rate in response to data traffic as low as possible so as to satisfy delay constraints, is a known method for energy efficient transmission.This paper addresses an online lazy scheduling problem over finite time-slotted transmission window and introduces low-complexity heuristics which attain near-optimal performance.Particularly, this paper generalizes lazy scheduling problem for energy harvesting systems to deal with packet arrival, energy harvesting and time-varying channel processes simultaneously. The time-slotted formulation of the problem and depiction of its offline optimal solution provide explicit expressions allowing to derive good online policies and algorithms