Intermittent Status Updating with Random Update Arrivals

We consider an intermittent status updating problem where updates arrive randomly. An energy harvesting node performs non-preemptive sensing/computing (S/C) to generate a status update when an arrival occurs. The node subsequently chooses to either transmit (Tx) or wait for another update to generate a new one. The S/C time for each update is independent with a general distribution. S/C and Tx operations each cost a single energy unit. The transmitter has a data buffer to save the latest update and a single transmitter where Tx time is independent general distributed. Any update arriving in Tx stage is discarded. We focus on one unit battery and infinite battery; and we show that average peak age of information (AoI) at the receiver is minimized by a threshold-based policy that allows only young packets to be transmitted. Our numerical results provide average peak AoI performance comparisons.