Resource Allocation for Wireless Information and Energy Transfer in Macrocell-Small Cell Networks

Wireless energy transfer capability and multi-tier network architecture are both envisioned as inherent features of the next generation wireless networks, on account of exponentially increasing low power connected devices and the rising concern about their limited battery life. In this paper, we investigate joint resource allocation problem, for wireless information and energy transfer in small cells overlaid by macrocell. Using scalarization technique of multi-objective programming, we jointly optimize energy harvesting rate and achievable throughput of small-cell users while ensuring that minimum throughput requirement of macrocell user is satisfied. The formulated MINLP problem is converted to convex optimization problem by relaxing some variables and introducing auxiliary variables. We highlight the condition at which the obtained solution is the optimal solution of the original problem. Numerical results are presented to analyze the performance of the proposed resource allocation framework and show the improvement in achieved energy harvesting rate, by comparing with a benchmark scheme.