Best Relay Transmission Aided Energy Harvesting in a Multi Relay Cooperative Network

Abstract

Radio frequency energy harvesting (EH) can be one of the promising solutions to power up energy constrained devices in the next generation wireless networks. In this paper, we have studied the performance of a cooperative EH multi relay network by benefitting from the transmission of the best relay to the destination. We consider each of the relays operate in time-switching (TS) decode-and-forward relay protocol. Among all the relays, the best relay Rb is determined in terms of stored harvested energy not only from the source but also from the transmitting relay. While Rb transmits, other relays in the network harvest energy from the transmitted signal and store it for future use. We have observed the increase in the system throughput compared to the EH protocol in which EH is performed merely from the source signal. A significant increase in the throughput has also been achieved with increase in the number of relays in the network.