Energy harvesting cooperative multiple access channel with data arrivals

Abstract

We consider an energy harvesting two user cooperative Gaussian multiple access channel (MAC), where both of the users harvest energy from nature. The data packets arrive intermittently over time. The users overhear each other's transmitted signals and can cooperate by forming common messages. We find the optimal offline transmit power and rate allocation policy that maximize the departure region. We first show that there exists an optimal policy, in which the single user rate constraints in each time slot are tight, yielding a one to one relation between the powers and rates. Then, we formulate the departure region maximization problem as a weighted sum rate maximization in terms of rates only. Next, we propose a sequential convex approximation method to approximate the problem at each step and show that it converges to the optimal solution. Finally, we solve the approximate problems using an inner outer decomposition method. Numerically, we observe that higher data rates can be supported with the same amount of energy.