Power Allocation in Wireless Energy Harvesting Based Relaying Sensor Networks

In this paper, the system throughput of a wireless energy harvesting (EH) based relay sensor network has been maximized. Decode and Forward (DF) relaying node first harvest the energy using Time Switching (TS) protocol and then harvested energy is used to transmit the information towards the destination. A new system model is adopted where harvested energy is used to charge the battery of common control unit and distributed among the relay nodes to transmit information towards destination. Three power allocation methods namely equal power, water-filling and channel gain based power distribution algorithms have been adopted to maximize system throughput. The simulation results authenticate that the channel gain based power allocation method is superior and water-filling is poorest among them. The EH time also plays a significant impact in achieveing the maximum system throughput.