Blockage effects on joint information & energy transfer in directional ad-hoc networks

The impact of blockages in the performance of next generation wireless networks has recently attracted a lot of attention. In this case, the existence of blockages can provide performance gains as the aggregate interference at a receiver is reduced. Furthermore, the employment of directional antennas at the network's nodes can further boost the performance through the power gains which antenna directionality produces. However, the impact of blockages on wireless power transfer has not been investigated equally. In this paper, we consider a bipolar ad-hoc network where the nodes employ directional antennas and have simultaneous wireless information and power transfer capabilities. We study the effects of blockages and directionality on the energy harvested by a receiver and show that the performance gains from the existence of blockages can be adjusted in order to increase the average harvested energy.