On Maximizing Min Source Rate in Power Beacon Assisted IoTs Networks

Future Internet of Things (IoTs) networks will have Radio Frequency (RF)-energy harvesting devices powered by a Power Beacon (PB). These devices will be tasked with collection and transmission of data over multiple hops to a fusion center. In this paper, our aim is to maximize the minimum data gathering rate of devices acting as sources. We formulate a Mixed Integer Linear Program (MILP) to compute the optimal max-min rate of sources by deciding for each slot the devices to be charged, a PB's transmission power, the amount of data routed over each link, and the active time of transmitting links. We also present a novel distributed protocol called Distributed Charging and Fairness Gathering (D-CFG) that is used by IoT devices to request charging from a PB and to ensure they forward data in a fair manner. Our results show that D-CFG achieves 57.1% of the theoretical max-min rate computed by the MILP.