Energy Harvesting Powered Packet Transmissions in Duty-Cycled WSNs: A DTMC Analysis

Energy harvesting (EH) promises an extended lifetime for wireless sensor networks (WSNs), supplying sensor nodes with accumulated energy from natural sources. Different from battery powered sensors, nodes in EH-enabled WSNs are equipped with an energy harvesting accessory in order to extract energy from surrounding sources. Based upon the harvested energy, sensor nodes perform data exchange activities. In this paper, we develop two discrete time Markov chain (DTMC) models to analyze the performance of packet transmissions in such a WSN while employing a generic synchronous medium access control (MAC) protocol. Using the proposed DTMC models, we investigate the effect of EH over a specific synchronous MAC protocol with respect to average packet delay and network throughput. Furthermore, the analytical results are validated via discrete-event simulations. Numerical results indicate the accuracy of the models and reveal the behavior of packet transmissions relying on harvested energy.