Energy Efficiency for RF-Powered Backscatter Networks Using HTT Protocol

Backscatter radio is an intriguing technology for Internet of Things applications, which enables ultra-low-power devices to communicate with each other. Most of the existing works on the combination of the backscatter communications and the “harvest-then-transfer” (HTT) protocol focus on the throughput maximization, yet the study on the energy efficiency (EE) maximization is still lacking. Driven by this observation, this paper studies the EE maximization for an RF-powered backscatter network with the HTT protocol. Multiple hybrid devices (HDs) can either use the backscatter mode by backscattering energy signals from the power beacon (PB) to the reader or use the HTT protocol to first harvest energy from the PB, and then to transmit data to the reader. The proposed scheme aims to optimize multiple parameters including PB's transmit power and time, HDs’ transmit power and time allocation between the backscatter mode and the HTT mode for maximizing the EE of all the HDs. An iterative algorithm is developed to find the optimal solution for the proposed resource allocation scheme. Simulation results demonstrate the superiority of the proposed scheme in terms of EE of all the HDs.