An overview of simultaneous wireless information and power transfer in massive MIMO networks: A resource allocation perspective

Providing a stable and perpetual source of energy to charge battery-powered wireless communication devices is viewed as a major challenge in wireless communication systems. This challenge leads to the trending research area where radio frequency signals are being exploited for energy harvesting purposes. The technique for achieving this is known as simultaneous wireless information and power transfer (SWIPT). In recent studies on SWIPT, the massive Multiple-Input-Multiple-Output (MIMO) aided energy harvesting has attracted considerable attention from the research community. This can be attributed to the high energy delivery rate of massive MIMO antenna systems due to their capacity to focus transmitted signals in the direction of the intended receivers. However, SWIPT in massive MIMO networks requires an optimal design to achieve a proper balance between different conflicting network objectives. In this article, we aim to discuss various contributions to SWIPT in massive MIMO networks in order to address critical design issues. In particular, we focus on the widely adopted approach to resolving SWIPT-related issues in massive MIMO networks, that is, the resource allocation design. We also extend our discussion to studies dedicated to solving critical design challenges. In this regard, we take into consideration the energy efficiency and security aspect of the system design. Finally, we identify potential areas that can be explored for future research work.     

Efficient and stable wireless power transfer based on the non-Hermitian physics

As one of the most attractive non-radiative power transfer mechanisms without cables,efficient magnetic resonance wireless power transfer(WPT)in the near field has been extensively developed in recent years,and promoted a variety of practical applications,such as mobile phones,medical implant devices and electric vehicles.However,the physical mechanism behind some key limitations of the resonance WPT,such as frequency splitting and size-dependent efficiency,is not very clear under the widely used circuit model.Here,we review the recently developed efficient and stable resonance WPT based on non-Hermitian physics,which starts from a completely different avenue(utilizing loss and gain)to introduce novel functionalities to the resonance WPT.From the perspective of non-Hermitian photonics,the coherent and incoherent effects compete and coexist in the WPT system,and the weak stable of energy transfer mainly comes from the broken phase associated with the phase transition of parity-time symmetry.Based on this basic physical framework,some optimization schemes are proposed,including using nonlinear effect,using bound states in the continuum,or resorting to the system with high-order parity-time symmetry.Moreover,the combination of non-Hermitian physics and topological photonics in multi-coil system also provides a versatile platform for long-range robust WPT with topological protection.Therefore,the non-Hermitian physics can not only exactly predict the main results of current WPT systems,but also provide new ways to solve the difficulties of previous designs.     

Time allocation improvement method for UAV-based wireless energy transfer cooperative mobile edge

Wireless power transfer (WPT) and mobile edge computing (MEC) are two advanced technologies that could improve the computing power and range of mobile devices. However, by integrating the unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) into wireless powered MEC systems, wireless energy transfer will be susceptible to the “double near–far” effect. Therefore, in order to further overcome the influence of the “double near–far” effect, this paper considers the optimization of time slot allocation for UAV-assisted wireless powered cooperative MEC system, which includes an access point (UAV) and two mobile devices. The purpose of the study is to minimize the total transmission energy of the UAV while satisfying the delay and size of the computational tasks, so this paper proposed a 2:1:1 time-slot optimization allocation method. The method exploits the synergy of users so that the mobile device which is closer to the UAV acts as an offloading relay, by combining power and time slot optimization to minimize the total energy consumption of the UAV. Compared with the equal time slot scheme before the improvement, this method can not only utilize the wireless transmission energy to charge the mobile device for more time in the first period, but also can save the time of data transmission of the closer device in the third period, and it can enhance the rate of data transmission of the mobile devices at the same time. The results show that the task capacity of the system computed will be increased compared to the original scheme; the total transmission rate of the whole system is also improved by the same order of magnitude. The simulation results verify the effectiveness and reliability of the algorithm of the paper, and the comprehensive performance of the system can be maximized by the flexible offloading algorithm.     

Computation bits maximization in backscatter-aided wireless powered MEC using binary offloading

This article considers a backscatter-aided wireless powered mobile edge computing (BC-aided WPMEC) network, in which the tasks data of each Internet of Things (IoT) device can be computed locally or offloaded to the MEC server via backscatter communications, and design a resource allocation scheme regarding the weighted sum computation bits (WSCB) maximization of all the IoT devices. Towards this end, by optimizing the mobile edge computing (MEC) server’s transmit power, IoT devices’ power reflection coefficients, local computing frequencies and time, the time allocation between the energy harvesting and task offloading, as well as the binary offloading decision at each IoT device, we built a WSCB maximization problem, which belongs to a non-convex mixed integer programming problem. For solving this, the proof by contradiction and the objective function’s monotonicity are considered to determine the optimal local computing time of each IoT device and the optimal transmit power of the MEC server, and the time-sharing relaxation (TSR) is adopted to tackle the integer variables, which are used to simplify the original problem. Then, we decouple the simplified problem into two sub-problems by means of the block coordinate decent (BCD) technology, and each of the sub-problems is transformed to a convex one by introducing auxiliary variables. Based on this, we design a two-stage alternative (TSA) optimization algorithm to solve the formulated WSCB problem. Computer simulations validate that the TSA algorithm has a fast convergent rate and also demonstrate that the proposed scheme achieves a higher WSCB than the existing schemes.     

人工表面等离激元超材料

以微带为代表的传统微波传输线无法精细操控电磁模式,因此传统电子信息系统在空间耦合、动态响应和性能鲁棒性等方面存在瓶颈。人工表面等离激元(SSPP)超材料可打破上述瓶颈,是光学与信息领域的研究热点之一。人工表面等离激元超材料是一类模拟光频段表面等离激元特性的新型超材料,可在微波和太赫兹频段精细操控表面波,具有与平面电路相似的构型特性,可用于制备下一代集成电路的基础传输线。人工表面等离激元分为传输型和局域型两类。传输型人工表面等离激元超材料始于三维立体结构,后发展成超薄梳状金属条带构型。学者们构建了以其为基础的微波电路新体系,研制了人工表面等离激元滤波器、天线、放大器和倍频器等典型的无源和有源器件,并将其集成为可实现亚波长间距多通道信号非视距传输的无线通信系统。人工局域表面等离激元(SLSP)超材料也经历了从三维立体构型到超薄构型的发展历程,并通过螺旋构型、链式构型、高阶模式和杂化模式等为电磁波的亚波长尺度调控提供了更多自由度。系统讨论了人工表面等离激元超材料在微波电路中的相关理论和应用,包括人工表面等离激元超材料的基本概念、构型发展、无源/有源器件以及无线通信系统。     

Wireless powered hybrid backscatter-active communications with hardware impairments

Wireless powered hybrid backscatter-active communication can full make use of the different tradeoff between power consumption and achievable rate of the active and backscatter communications, and thus achieving a better performance than wireless powered active or backscatter communications. In this paper, we design a throughput maximization-based resource allocation scheme for a wireless powered hybrid backscatter-active communication network, while considering the hardware impairments at all RF front ends of each transceiver. Towards this end, we formulate a problem by jointly optimizing the transmit power of the dedicated energy source, the time for pure energy harvesting, backscatter and active communications, the power reflection coefficient, and the transmit power of each IoT node during active communications. The formulated problem is non-convex and different to solve. Subsequently an iterative algorithm based on the block coordinated decent technology is proposed to address the above problem. Simulation results verify that our proposed iterative algorithm converges very fast and that the proposed scheme outperforms the baseline schemes in terms of the throughput.     

Omnidirectional non-radiative wireless power transfer with rotating magnetic field and efficiency improvement by metamaterial

In this paper, omnidirectional wireless power transfer (OWPT) via magnetic resonant coupling is proposed based on rotating magnetic field. In contrast to conventional WPT, the proposed wireless power transmitter consists of two orthogonal loops with 90° feeding phase difference. Both theoretical analyses and numerical simulations show that such transmitter generates rotating magnetic field and can provide wireless power to multiple receivers moving around it. In addition, a cylindrical metamaterial slab with negative permeability is used to improve the efficiency of the OWPT system, for the unique property of enhancing evanescent wave of metamaterials. It is shown that the efficiency of the OWPT can be improved to more than five times of that of the original one by the metamaterial slab.     

Performance enhancement in the cell-free massive MIMO SWIPT system with active eavesdropping

This paper investigates the secure transmission for simultaneous wireless information and power transfer (SWIPT) in the cell-free massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) system. To develop green communication, legitimate users harvest energy by the hybrid time switching (TS) and power splitting (PS) strategy in the downlink phase, and the harvested energy can provide power to send uplink pilot sequences for the next time slot. By in-built batteries, the active eavesdropper can send the same pilots with the wiretapped user, which results in undesirable correlations between the channel estimates. Under these scenarios, we derive the closed-form expressions of average harvested energy and achievable rates, and propose an iterative power control (PC) scheme based on max–min fairness algorithm with energy and secrecy constraints (MMF-ESC). This scheme can ensure the uniform good services for all users preserving the distributed architecture advantage of cell-free networks, while meeting the requirements of energy harvested by legitimate users and network security against active eavesdroppers. Besides, continuous approximation, bisection and path tracking are jointly applied to cope with the high-complexity and non-convex optimization. Numerical results demonstrate that MMF-ESC PC scheme can effectively increase the achievable rate and the average harvested energy of each user, and decrease the eavesdropping rate below the threshold. Moreover, the results also reveal that PS strategy is superior in harvesting energy in terms of more stringent network requirements for average achievable rates or security.     

AN-aided beamforming for IRS-assisted SWIPT systems

This paper studies artificial noise (AN)-aided beamforming design in an intelligent reflecting surface (IRS)-assisted system empowered by simultaneous wireless information and power transfer (SWIPT) technique. Multiple power splitting (PS) single-antenna receivers simultaneously receive information and energy from a multi-antenna base station (BS). Although all users are legitimate, in each transmission interval only one receiver is authorized to receive information and the others are only allowed to harvest power which are considered as unauthorized receivers (URs). To prevent information decoding by URs, AN signal is transmitted from the BS. We adopt a non-linear model for energy harvesting. In the optimization problem, we minimize the total transmit power, and for this purpose, we utilize an alternating optimization (AO) algorithm. For the non-convex rank-one constraint for IRS phase shifts, we utilize a sequential rank-one constraint relaxation (SROCR) algorithm. In addition to single antenna URs scenario, we investigate multi-antenna URs scenario and evaluate their performance. Simulation results validate the effectiveness of using IRS.     

Joint beamforming and phase-shifting design for energy efficiency in RIS-assisted MISO communication with statistical CSI

The emergence of more and more computation-intensive applications has imposed higher requirements in spectrum and energy efficiency (EE) for internet of things (IoT) wireless networks. Massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) is utilized to gain spectral efficiency as an important part of wireless systems. However, the power expansion from hardware lowers the massive MIMO performance remarkably. Reconfigurable intelligent surface (RIS) technology can solve this problem well since it can not only provide higher array gain but also reduce energy depletion and hardware expense. In this article, we study joint optimization about beam-forming, RIS phase shift, and energy harvesting of IoT devices for maximizing EE of the multiple-input single-input downlink system with multiple IoT devices and an energy harvesting device. Different from existing works focusing on ergodic capacity with known statistic channel information of BS-RIS-device, we suppose that statistics information of RIS-device is known. Mathematically, the joint optimization problem is cast into a challenging non-convex one. To this end, based on successive convex approximation, we convert the original problem into two parts and then provide two heuristic schemes to tackle them, respectively. Next, an iterative scheme integrated by two heuristic algorithms is proposed to earn feasible solution in polynomial time. Finally, the proposed scheme is verified to be effective by simulations.     

Advantages of solitonic shape pulses for full-optical wireless communication links

We propose the use of a power pulse shape of the widely known optical soliton, corresponding to the hyperbolic secant square function, for both conventional atmospheric optical communication systems and, especially, for new full-optical wireless communications. We analyze the performance of the proposed pulse in terms of peak-to-average optical power ratio (PAOPR) and bit error rate (BER). During the analysis, we compare the proposed pulse shape against conventional rectangular and Gaussian pulse shapes with reduced duty cycle. Results show the noticeable superiority of the proposed pulse for atmospheric optical links.     

Throughput maximization of an IRS-assisted wireless powered network with interference: A deep unsupervised learning approach

We consider an intelligent reflecting surface (IRS)-assisted wireless powered communication network (WPCN) in which a multi antenna power beacon (PB) sends a dedicated energy signal to a wireless powered source. The source first harvests energy and then utilizing this harvested energy, it sends an information signal to destination where an external interference may also be present. For the considered system model, we formulated an analytical problem in which the objective is to maximize the throughput by jointly optimizing the energy harvesting (EH) time and IRS phase shift matrices. The optimization problem is high dimensional non-convex, thus a good quality solution can be obtained by invoking any state-of-the-art algorithm such as Genetic algorithm (GA). It is well-known that the performance of GA is generally remarkable, however it incurs a high computational complexity. To this end, we propose a deep unsupervised learning (DUL) based approach in which a neural network (NN) is trained very efficiently as time-consuming task of labeling a data set is not required. Numerical examples show that our proposed approach achieves a better performance–complexity trade-off as it is not only several times faster but also provides almost same or even higher throughput as compared to the GA.     

Optimal power allocation for maximizing the energy efficiency of NOMA enabled full-duplex coordinated direct and relay transmission (CDRT) system with SWIPT

In this paper, we investigate the energy efficiency (EE) performance of non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) enabled full-duplex (FD) coordinated direct and relay transmission (CDRT) system (i.e., NOMA-FD-CDRT system). Firstly, we consider a two-user scenario, where the base station (BS) can directly communicate with the near user, while it requires the help of a dedicated FD relay node to communicate with the far user. In the second part, we consider that there are two near users and two far users in the system. To improve the EE, we consider integrating the simultaneous wireless information and power transfer (SWIPT) technique at the FD relay. We formulate an analytical expression for the overall EE of the SWIPT-assisted NOMA-FD-CDRT system. We determine optimal power allocation (OPA) for the downlink users at the BS that maximizes the EE. An iterative algorithm based on Dinkelbach method is proposed to determine the OPA vector. With the help of detailed numerical and simulation investigations, it is demonstrated that the proposed OPA can provide significant enhancement of EE of the considered SWIPT-assisted NOMA-FD-CDRT system.     

Chance-constrained resource allocation for cognitive wireless-powered backscatter communication networks

With the rapid development of the Internet of Things (IoT) and the increasing number of wireless nodes, the problems of scare spectrum and energy supply of nodes have become main issues. To achieve green IoT techniques and resolve the challenge of wireless power supply, wireless-powered backscatter communication as a promising transmission paradigm has been concerned by many scholars. In wireless-powered backscatter communication networks, the passive backscatter nodes can harvest the ambient radio frequency signals for the devices’ wireless charging and also reflect some information signals to the information receiver in a low-power-consumption way. To balance the relationship between the amount of energy harvesting and the amount of information rate, resource allocation is a key technique in wireless-powered backscatter communication networks. However, most of the current resource allocation algorithms assume available perfect channel state information and limited spectrum resource, it is impractical for actual backscatter systems due to the impact of channel delays, the nonlinearity of hardware circuits and quantization errors that may increase the possibility of outage probability. To this end, we investigate a robust resource allocation problem to improve system robustness and spectrum efficiency in a cognitive wireless-powered backscatter communication network, where secondary transmitters can work at the backscattering transmission mode and the harvest-then-transmit mode by a time division multiple access manner. The total throughput of the secondary users is maximized by jointly optimizing the transmission time, the transmit power, and the reflection coefficients of secondary transmitters under the constraints on the throughput outage probability of the users. To tackle the non-convex problem, we design a robust resource allocation algorithm to obtain the optimal solution by using the proper variable substitution method and Lagrange dual theory. Simulation results verify the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm in terms of lower outage probabilities.     

Terahertz band: Next frontier for wireless communications

This paper provides an in-depth view of Terahertz Band (0.1–10 THz) communication, which is envisioned as a key technology to satisfy the increasing demand for higher speed wireless communication. THz Band communication will alleviate the spectrum scarcity and capacity limitations of current wireless systems, and enable new applications both in classical networking domains as well as in novel nanoscale communication paradigms. In this paper, the device design and development challenges for THz Band are surveyed first. The limitations and possible solutions for high-speed transceiver architectures are highlighted. The challenges for the development of new ultra-broadband antennas and very large antenna arrays are explained. When the devices are finally developed, then they need to communicate in the THz band. There exist many novel communication challenges such as propagation modeling, capacity analysis, modulation schemes, and other physical and link layer solutions, in the THz band which can be seen as a new frontier in the communication research. These challenges are treated in depth in this paper explaining the existing plethora of work and what still needs to be tackled.     

Indoor optical wireless systems–a review

This paper reviews the research effort to date into optical wireless communication systems, both in academic and industrial contexts. The idea of using the optical medium for wireless communications is not new, having been proposed as a means for indoor communications almost two decades ago. However, the last few years have seen an explosive interest in the potential for free space optical systems to provide portable data communications. One of the prime motivators for reconsidering the use of an optical carrier in the wireless context is the demand for greater transmission bandwidths. The radio frequency spectrum is already exceedingly congested and frequency allocations of sufficient bandwidths are extremely hard to obtain. Further, for the high bandwidth services envisaged, the use of microwave or mm-wave systems will be required, where device technology is currently either expensive or immature. Proponents of optical wireless systems argue that the optical medium is the only cost-effective way to provide high bit-rate mobile services to volume markets. This paper identifies the technical obstacles and limitations of indoor optical wireless delivery in addition to techniques for mitigating these effects and shows that infrared is a viable alternative to radio for certain applications. This revised version was published online in November 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

The opportunistic transmission of wireless worms between mobile devices

The ubiquity of portable wireless-enabled computing and communications devices has stimulated the emergence of malicious codes (wireless worms) that are capable of spreading between spatially proximal devices. The potential exists for worms to be opportunistically transmitted between devices as they move around, so human mobility patterns will have an impact on epidemic spread. The scenario we address in this paper is proximity attacks from fleetingly in-contact wireless devices with short-range communication range, such as Bluetooth-enabled smart phones.An individual-based model of mobile devices is introduced and the effect of population characteristics and device behaviour on the outbreak dynamics is investigated. The model uses straight-line motion to achieve population, though it is recognised that this is a highly simplified representation of human mobility patterns. We show that the contact rate can be derived from the underlying mobility model and, through extensive simulation, that mass-action epidemic models remain applicable to worm spreading in the low density regime studied here. The model gives useful analytical expressions against which more refined simulations of worm spread can be developed and tested.     

Array design for mm-wave UAV-assisted cooperative communications with simultaneous wireless information and power transmission

High performance UAV-assisted communications system using simultaneous wireless information and power transmission (SWIPT) in mm-wave band is presented. UAV is a moving relay powered from a ground source through a power-splitting mechanism. In mm-wave band we utilize antenna array to increase the antenna gain while keeping array size small and practical. The radiation pattern of the UAV antenna is continuously adjusted to peak towards the source and destination. Two array geometries, a line and a cross, are designed for UAV antenna. We achieve near optimal pattern, utilizing innovative low power switches instead of phase shifters which are high power consuming components and using them here defies the purpose. We maximize the end-to-end cooperative throughput by optimizing the UAV power profile, power-splitting ratio profile, antenna weights (0, 1), and UAV trajectory for amplify-and-forward (AF) protocol. We consider two cases. Case1: UAV transmits and receives data simultaneously along two predefined trajectories. The antenna weights for line and cross arrays are optimized utilizing genetic algorithm. The power profile and, power-splitting ratio profile are also optimized using the penalty method. Case2: UAV accumulates the data and power along an optimal trajectory until it reaches the vicinity of target, when it transmits data at high bit rate. Here we define the optimization of parameters mentioned in Case1, while at an optimal point along the trajectory, as sub-problem1, and finding the next optimal point as sub-problem2. Sub-problem1 is solved using the genetic algorithm and dual decomposition method. Sub-problem2 is then solved using successive concave optimization. The overall problem, i.e. cooperative throughput, is solved by reciprocal iteration over the two sub problems. The simulation results show the proposed mm-wave band cross array antenna and switches can overcome the high frequency propagation losses, hence, achieving higher power harvest and data rates. The achieved higher data throughput outperforms the conventional single antenna low frequency systems.     

Energy-Efficient Optimization for Energy-Harvesting-Enabled mmWave-UAV Heterogeneous Networks

Energy Harvesting (EH) is a promising paradigm for 5G heterogeneous communication. EH-enabled Device-to-Device (D2D) communication can assist devices in overcoming the disadvantage of limited battery capacity and improving the Energy Efficiency (EE) by performing EH from ambient wireless signals. Although numerous research works have been conducted on EH-based D2D communication scenarios, the feature of EH-based D2D communication underlying Air-to-Ground (A2G) millimeter-Wave (mmWave) networks has not been fully studied. In this paper, we considered a scenario where multiple Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) are deployed to provide energy for D2D Users (DUs) and data transmission for Cellular Users (CUs). We aimed to improve the network EE of EH-enabled D2D communications while reducing the time complexity of beam alignment for mmWave-enabled D2D Users (DUs). We considered a scenario where multiple EH-enabled DUs and CUs coexist, sharing the full mmWave frequency band and adopting high-directive beams for transmitting. To improve the network EE, we propose a joint beamwidth selection, power control, and EH time ratio optimization algorithm for DUs based on alternating optimization. We iteratively optimized one of the three variables, fixing the other two. During each iteration, we first used a game-theoretic approach to adjust the beamwidths of DUs to achieve the sub-optimal EE. Then, the problem with regard to power optimization was solved by the Dinkelbach method and Successive Convex Approximation (SCA). Finally, we performed the optimization of the EH time ratio using linear fractional programming to further increase the EE. By performing extensive simulation experiments, we validated the convergence and effectiveness of our algorithm. The results showed that our proposed algorithm outperformed the fixed beamwidth and fixed power strategy and could closely approach the performance of exhaustive search, particle swarm optimization, and the genetic algorithm, but with a much reduced time complexity.     

Latency optimization for Federated Learning over Wireless Power Transfer

Federal Learning (FL) is an emerging technology in the field of machine learning (ML). Compared with traditional ML, FL is an attractive method to deal with data security issues of the user-side. So that FL can realizes its full potential in terms of low latency and high energy efficiency (EE), this paper introduces a new framework: In the wireless communication network scenario, we propose an FL architecture based on Wireless Power Transfer (WPT). By combining WPT technology and FL, we can realize green wireless communication under the premise of ensuring user privacy. We formulate a joint calculation and communication optimization problem to optimize the latency of local calculation, uplink and downlink transmission without consuming user-side energy. The problem formulas listed according to the optimization problem are non-convex. They are first transformed into convex form, and then a low-complexity iterative algorithm is used to solve them optimally. Simulations show that our proposed FL method design has achieved a significant performance improvement over other benchmark tests.