Throughput Optimization for Massive MIMO Systems Powered by Wireless Energy Transfer

This paper studies a wireless-energy-transfer (WET) enabled massive multiple-input-multiple-output (MIMO) system (MM) consisting of a hybrid data-and-energy access point (H-AP) and multiple single-antenna users. In the WET-MM system, the H-AP is equipped with a large number $M$ of antennas and functions like a conventional AP in receiving data from users, but additionally supplies wireless power to the users. We consider frame-based transmissions. Each frame is divided into three phases: the uplink channel estimation (CE) phase, the downlink WET phase, as well as the uplink wireless information transmission (WIT) phase. Firstly, users use a fraction of the previously harvested energy to send pilots, while the H-AP estimates the uplink channels and obtains the downlink channels by exploiting channel reciprocity. Next, the H-AP utilizes the channel estimates just obtained to transfer wireless energy to all users in the downlink via energy beamforming. Finally, the users use a portion of the harvested energy to send data to the H-AP simultaneously in the uplink (reserving some harvested energy for sending pilots in the next frame). To optimize the throughput and ensure rate fairness, we consider the problem of maximizing the minimum rate among all users. In the large-$M$ regime, we obtain the asymptotically optimal solutions and some interesting insights for the optimal design of WET-MM system. We define a metric, namely, the massive MIMO degree-of-rate-gain (MM-DoRG), as the asymptotic UL rate normalized by $\log(M)$. We show that the proposed WET-MM system is optimal in terms of MM-DoRG, i.e., it achieves the same MM-DoRG as the case with ideal CE.Comment: 15 double-column pages, 6 figures, 1 table, to appear in IEEE JSAC in February 2015, special issue on wireless communications powered by energy harvesting and wireless energy transfe

Optimization and Analysis of Wireless Powered Multi-antenna Cooperative Systems

In this paper, we consider a three-node cooperative wireless powered communication system consisting of a multi-antenna hybrid access point (H-AP) and a single-antenna relay and a single-antenna user. The energy constrained relay and user first harvest energy in the downlink and then the relay assists the user using the harvested power for information transmission in the uplink. The optimal energy beamforming vector and the time split between harvest and cooperation are investigated. To reduce the computational complexity, suboptimal designs are also studied, where closed-form expressions are derived for the energy beamforming vector and the time split. For comparison purposes, we also present a detailed performance analysis in terms of the achievable outage probability and the average throughput of an intuitive energy beamforming scheme, where the H-AP directs all the energy towards the user. The findings of the paper suggest that implementing multiple antennas at the H-AP can significantly improve the system performance, and the closed-form suboptimal energy beamforming vector and time split yields near optimal performance. Also, for the intuitive beamforming scheme, a diversity order of (N+1)/2 can be achieved, where N is the number of antennas at the H-AP

Wireless Information and Power Transfer in Full-Duplex Systems with Massive Antenna Arrays

We consider a multiuser wireless system with a full-duplex hybrid access point (HAP) that transmits to a set of users in the downlink channel, while receiving data from a set of energy-constrained sensors in the uplink channel. We assume that the HAP is equipped with a massive antenna array, while all users and sensor nodes have a single antenna. We adopt a time-switching protocol where in the first phase, sensors are powered through wireless energy transfer from HAP and HAP estimates the downlink channel of the users. In the second phase, sensors use the harvested energy to transmit to the HAP. The downlink-uplink sum-rate region is obtained by solving downlink sum-rate maximization problem under a constraint on uplink sum-rate. Moreover, assuming perfect and imperfect channel state information, we derive expressions for the achievable uplink and downlink rates in the large-antenna limit and approximate results that hold for any finite number of antennas. Based on these analytical results, we obtain the power-scaling law and analyze the effect of the number of antennas on the cancellation of intra-user interference and the self-interference.Comment: Accepted for the IEEE International Conference on Communications (ICC 2017

Wireless Power Transfer in Massive MIMO Aided HetNets with User Association

This paper explores the potential of wireless power transfer (WPT) in massive multiple input multiple output (MIMO) aided heterogeneous networks (HetNets), where massive MIMO is applied in the macrocells, and users aim to harvest as much energy as possible and reduce the uplink path loss for enhancing their information transfer. By addressing the impact of massive MIMO on the user association, we compare and analyze two user association schemes. We adopt the linear maximal ratio transmission beam-forming for massive MIMO power transfer to recharge users. By deriving new statistical properties, we obtain the exact and asymptotic expressions for the average harvested energy. Then we derive the average uplink achievable rate under the harvested energy constraint.Comment: 36 pages, 11 figures, to appear in IEEE Transactions on Communication