Performance Analysis on Low-Power Energy Harvesting Wireless Sensors Eco-Friendly Networks with a Novel Relay Selection Scheme

Abstract

Simultaneous wireless information and power transfer (SWIPT) has been utilized widely in wireless sensor networks (WSNs) to design systems that can be sustained by harvesting energy from the surrounding areas. In this study, we investigated the performance of the low-power energy harvesting (LPEH) WSN. We equipped each relay with a battery that consisted of an on/off (1/0) decision scheme according to the Markov property. In this context, an optimal loop interference relay selection was proposed and investigated. Moreover, the crucial role of the log-normal distribution method in characterizing the LPEH WSN’s constraints was proven and emphasized. System performance was evaluated in terms of the overall ergodic outage probability (OP) both analytically and numerically with Monte Carlo simulation. The system had the lowest overall ergodic OP, thus, performed the best with an energy harvesting time switch of 0.175. Following the increase in the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), the system without a direct link performed the worst. Furthermore, as more relays were deployed, the better the system performed. Finally, results showed that more than 80% of the data rates can be obtained under the household condition, without the need for extra bandwidth and power supply.