Throughput Maximization with an Energy Outage Constraint for Energy Harvesting Links

摘要

In energy harvesting networks, the randomness in arrival times and the amount of energy harvested, in addition to the fluctuations in the communication channel, pose a significant challenge in determining the optimal transmission policy. In this paper, we consider a single transmitter with finite battery capacity and a fading channel in a point-to-point wireless communication system where the harvested energy is stored and utilized for data transmission purposes. In this paper, we introduce the notion of energy outage probability - this allows us to develop simple and effective energy use policies while accounting for the energy harvesting random process. We formulate the rate maximization problem considering probabilistic online energy harvesting constraints. We present a technique to solve this non-convex optimization problem and devise the optimal power allocation solution in closed-form. We compare our proposed approach with the deterministic approaches available in literature to illustrate the loss in throughput due to availability of only probabilistic information about the incoming energy.