Network life time maximization is becoming an important design goal in
wireless sensor networks. Energy harvesting has recently become a preferred
choice for achieving this goal as it provides near perpetual operation. We
study such a sensor node with an energy harvesting source and compare various
architectures by which the harvested energy is used. We find its Shannon
capacity when it is transmitting its observations over a fading AWGN channel
with perfect/no channel state information provided at the transmitter. We
obtain an achievable rate when there are inefficiencies in energy storage and
the capacity when energy is spent in activities other than transmission.Comment: 6 Pages, To be presented at IEEE GLOBECOM 201
