Optimal Time Splitting in Wireless Energy Harvesting-Enabled Sensor Networks

This research paper presents a study on wireless energy harvesting (WEH) protocols and their impact on the performance of sensor networks. A time switching (TS)-based WEH protocol is proposed, which allows sensor nodes to switch between energy harvesting and data transmission modes. The primary objective of this research is to maximize the uplink (UL) sum throughput while considering the constraint of a minimum downlink (DL) throughput. To achieve this, an optimization problem is formulated, and the Karush-Kuhn-Tucker (KKT) conditions and Lagrangian multiplier are employed to solve the optimization problem. Additionally, a UL-DL channel gain-based unequal sensor node operating time scheme is introduced. The results of the study demonstrate that increasing the DL threshold data rate enhances UL performance in terms of sum throughput and outage. Moreover, the proposed channel gain-based unequal operating time scheme outperforms the equal sensor node operating time approach.