Wireless Networks With RF Energy Harvesting: A Contemporary Survey

TLDR

RF energy harvesting is emerging as an alternative power source for next‑generation wireless networks, enabling proactive energy replenishment and supporting QoS‑sensitive applications. The paper reviews progress in RF‑EHNs and outlines future research directions. The review surveys RF‑EHN system architecture, harvesting techniques, circuit implementations, communication protocols, and key design issues across single‑hop, multi‑antenna, relay, and cognitive radio networks.

Abstract

Radio frequency (RF) energy transfer and harvesting techniques have recently become alternative methods to power the next-generation wireless networks. As this emerging technology enables proactive energy replenishment of wireless devices, it is advantageous in supporting applications with quality-of-service requirements. In this paper, we present a comprehensive literature review on the research progresses in wireless networks with RF energy harvesting capability, which is referred to as RF energy harvesting networks (RF-EHNs). First, we present an overview of the RF-EHNs including system architecture, RF energy harvesting techniques, and existing applications. Then, we present the background in circuit design as well as the state-of-the-art circuitry implementations and review the communication protocols specially designed for RF-EHNs. We also explore various key design issues in the development of RF-EHNs according to the network types, i.e., single-hop networks, multiantenna networks, relay networks, and cognitive radio networks. Finally, we envision some open research directions.