Device-Selective Energy Request in RF Energy-Harvesting Networks

In a Wireless Local Area Network (WLAN), devices have limited battery capacity. To improve the energy efficiency, we propose a new Medium Access Control (MAC) protocol to perform selective energy transfer request based on the amount of residual energy of a device in a WLAN with IEEE 802.11 Distributed Coordination Function (DCF). By supplying the energy only to the device requiring energy harvesting, the deterioration in network throughput during energy harvesting in a wireless network is minimized. We present a new energy Markov chain model to analyze the throughput and the energy efficiency of the proposed method. We confirm that the throughput and the energy efficiency of the proposed method is improved.