Optimal Packet Scheduling in an Energy Harvesting Communication System

TLDR

The study focuses on optimal packet scheduling in a single‑user energy‑harvesting wireless communication system. The aim is to adapt transmission rates to traffic load and available energy to minimize total packet delivery time. The authors model random arrivals of data packets and harvested energy, assume deterministic knowledge of harvesting times and amounts, and analyze two scenarios—one with all bits ready at start and one with packets arriving during transmission with known times and sizes. Optimal offline scheduling policies are derived that minimize the completion time while respecting causality constraints on data and energy arrivals.

Abstract

We consider the optimal packet scheduling problem in a single-user energy harvesting wireless communication system. In this system, both the data packets and the harvested energy are modeled to arrive at the source node randomly. Our goal is to adaptively change the transmission rate according to the traffic load and available energy, such that the time by which all packets are delivered is minimized. Under a deterministic system setting, we assume that the energy harvesting times and harvested energy amounts are known before the transmission starts. For the data traffic arrivals, we consider two different scenarios. In the first scenario, we assume that all bits have arrived and are ready at the transmitter before the transmission starts. In the second scenario, we consider the case where packets arrive during the transmissions, with known arrival times and sizes. We develop optimal off-line scheduling policies which minimize the time by which all packets are delivered to the destination, under causality constraints on both data and energy arrivals.