Optimal Resource Allocation in Backscatter Assisted Wireless Powered Communication Networks with Practical Energy Harvesting Model

Integration of backscatter communication and wireless powered communication is a promising way to improve the performance of future Internet of Things (IoT) networks. However, this integration needs to be studied in practical scenarios with realistic models for the network elements. In this paper, we investigate optimal resource allocation in a backscatter assisted wireless powered communication network (BS-WPCN), where a piece-wise linear energy harvesting (EH) model is assumed at the users, which accounts for the saturation effect of practical energy harvesters. We study the problem of throughput maximization and apply a block coordinate descent (BCD) method to find the optimal allocation of resources for maximizing the total throughput. Numerical results demonstrate that the proposed scheme considerably improves the performance compared to the baseline scheme, which assumes linear EH model at the users.