Revisiting Transmission Scheduling in RF Energy Harvesting Wireless Communications

The transmission scheduling is a critical problem in radio frequency (RF) energy harvesting communications. Existing transmission strategies are mainly designed based on a classic model, in which the harvested energy is assumed pre-determined and considered as prior knowledge in offline approaches. In this extended abstract, we challenge this assumption showing that the harvested energy is affected by the transmission scheduling and becomes unknown and not pre-determined. In the new model, we add a feedback line from the data transmission to the harvested energy. It properly indicates the interplay between the energy harvest and the data transmission but challenges the transmission scheduling in the meantime. We formulated the optimal transmission scheduling based on the new model and advocate a recursive solution.