Optimum Design of Energy Harvesting Relay for Two-Way Decode-and-Forward Relay Networks Under Max–Min and Max-Sum Criterions

We study the optimum design of an energy harvesting relay for two-way decode-and-forward (DF) relay networks. In the networks, the relay harvests energy as well as decodes information using the received signal from two sources with power splitting relaying (PSR) and time switching relaying (TSR) strategies. Since the two-way relay network has two opposite traffic flows, it can be considered as a special case of multi-user systems. Applying the max–min criterion for fairness and max-sum criterion for maximum resource utilization, we optimize the operations of the energy harvesting relay. Specifically, considering the transmission rate constraints of individual hops, we derive optimum power splitting coefficients and optimum time switching coefficients, respectively, for PSR-based and TSR-based networks under both criterions, and analytically calculate the resulting maximum transmission rates. Numerical results confirm that our analyses exactly match with exhaustive search simulations. The obtained optimum coefficients are given in closed-form, therefore, they can be easily adopted in simple two-way relay networks with limited computational power such as sensor/Internet of Things (IoT) networks and can help two-way DF relay networks.