Optimal Time Scheduling for Wireless-Powered Backscatter Communication Networks

TL;DR

This paper proposes an optimized time scheduling method for a wireless-powered backscatter communication network that enhances throughput by combining backscattering and energy harvesting, using convex optimization.

Contribution

It introduces a novel system model and formulates an optimal time scheduling solution to maximize network throughput in wireless-powered backscatter networks.

Findings

Significant throughput gain over baseline schemes.

Effective integration of backscattering and energy harvesting.

Optimal convex optimization-based scheduling solution.

Abstract

This letter introduces a novel wireless-powered backscatter communication system which allows sensors to utilize RF signals transmitted from a dedicated RF energy source to transmit data. In the proposed system, when the RF energy source transmits RF signals, the sensors are able to backscatter the RF signals to transmit date to the gateway and/or harvest energy from the RF signals for their operations. By integrating backscattering and energy harvesting techniques, we can optimize the network throughput of the system. In particular, we first formulate the time scheduling problem for the system, and then propose an optimal solution using convex optimization to maximize the overall network throughput. Numerical results show a significant throughput gain achieved by our proposed design over two other baseline schemes.