Ambient RF Energy Harvesting in Ultra-Dense Small Cell Networks: Performance and Trade-offs

TL;DR

This paper explores the potential of ambient RF energy harvesting in ultra-dense small cell networks, analyzing performance trade-offs and proposing optimal deployment strategies to enhance energy efficiency and network reliability.

Contribution

It investigates the feasibility and performance trade-offs of RF-based ambient energy harvesting in ultra-dense small cell networks, highlighting the benefits of mixed on-grid and off-grid SBS deployment.

Findings

Deploying a mix of on-grid and off-grid SBSs improves energy efficiency.

Optimizing the proportion of energy-harvesting SBSs reduces SINR outage.

Numerical results support strategic deployment for better network performance.

Abstract

In order to minimize electric grid power consumption, energy harvesting from ambient RF sources is considered as a promising technique for wireless charging of low-power devices. To illustrate the design considerations of RF-based ambient energy harvesting networks, this article first points out the primary challenges of implementing and operating such networks, including non-deterministic energy arrival patterns, energy harvesting mode selection, energy-aware cooperation among base stations (BSs), etc. A brief overview of the recent advancements and a summary of their shortcomings are then provided to highlight existing research gaps and possible future research directions. To this end, we investigate the feasibility of implementing RF-based ambient energy harvesting in ultra-dense small cell networks (SCNs) and examine the related trade-offs in terms of the energy efficiency and signal-to-interference-plus-noise ratio (SINR) outage probability of a typical user in the downlink. Numerical results demonstrate the significance of deploying a mixture of on-grid small base stations (SBSs)~(powered by electric grid) and off-grid SBSs~(powered by energy harvesting) and optimizing their corresponding proportions as a function of the intensity of active SBSs in the network.