Modeling and Performance Analysis for Opportunistic Energy Harvesting Networks: Network Lifetime Aspect

In modern wireless sensor networks (WSNs), energy harvesting (EH) is a promising technology to prolong lifetime of nodes without interrupting network operations. Equipped with a rechargeable battery, a node can harvest energy from surrounding environments such as solar cells, vibration absorption devices, water mills, etc. and uses this free energy for data transmission and reception. However, due to uncertainty of available energy supply, it is utmost important to understand how the performance of EH networks will be affected by the uncertainty. This paper therefore analyzes the performance of EH-based WSNs in such opportunistic and free environments. The analysis studies the effectiveness of traffic and energy arrival rates at a node and provides explicit mathematical expression for network lifetime of nodes EH-based WSNs. The analytical results are confirmed and complemented by extensive simulations.