IEEE International Symposium on Personal, Indoor and Mobile Radio Communications
31 August-3 September 2020 // Virtual Conference

T12: Wireless Powered Communications: A New Communication Paradigm

Instructors

Dr Ioannis Krikidis,
Dr Constantinos Psomas,
University of Cyprus, CY

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£50 Tutorial only | Tutorial + Full Conference access from £120

Half-day Tutorial, Monday 31st August 14:00 (BST)
Further pricing details can be found on the registration page.

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Motivation

Conventional energy-constrained wireless systems such as sensor networks are powered by batteries and have limited lifetime.

Wireless power transfer (WPT) is a promising technology for energy sustainable networks, where terminals can harvest energy from dedicated electromagnetic radiation through appropriate electronic circuits.

The integration of WPT technology into communication networks introduces a fundamental co-existence of information and energy flows; radio-frequency signals are used in order to convey information and/or energy.

The efficient management of these two flows through sophisticated networking protocols, signal processing/communication techniques and network architectures, gives rise to a new communication paradigm called wireless powered communications (WPC).

Structure and content

In this tutorial, we discuss the principles of WPC and we highlight its main network architectures as well as the fundamental trade-off between information and energy transfer. Several examples, which deal with the integration of WPC in modern communication systems, are presented. Specifically, we study some fundamental network structures such as the MIMO broadcast channel, the interference channel, the relay channel, the multiple-access channel, and ad-hoc networks. The integration of WPC in 5G and beyond is analyzed and discussed through the use of tools from stochastic geometry. Future research directions and challenges are also pointed out.

  1. Introduction to WPC:
    In this part, we introduce the WPT/WPC technology and present its main network architectures. Feasibility issues, potential applications and basic energy harvesting models are presented. The fundamental trade-off between information and energy transfer is also introduced through basic examples.
  2. WPC from Information Theory standpoint:
    In this part, we study WPC from a fundamental point of view though information theoretic tools. A WPC system aims to (i) reliably transmit information with a sufficiently small probability of error; and (ii) transmit energy at a given rate with a sufficiently small probability of energy shortage. The information-energy capacity region is derived for basic network topologies.
  3. WPC from a Signal Processing standpoint:
    In this part, we deal with practical communication and signal processing techniques appropriate for WPC systems. Topics discussed include energy beamforming, receiver architectures for WPC, relaying, waveform design and multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) for WPC.
  4. WPC from a system level standpoint:
    In this part, we study WPC from a system level point of view by using stochastic geometry tools. We take into account the spatial 4 / 5 randomness of the terminals and we study the integration of WPC in cellular networks, bipolar ad-hoc networks, sensor networks and 5G mmWave.
  5. WPC from an experimental standpoint:
    In this part, we highlight some experimental research activities associated with the implementation WPC.

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