Coordinated multipoint-based uplink transmission in internet of things powered by energy harvesting

Energy harvesting techniques extend the lifetime of Internet of Things (IoT), whereas yield an unprecedented paradigm shift in network design. Base stations (BSs), being powered by self-contained energy harvesting modules, may keep OFF during recharging, leading to super-frequent handovers for nodes and high network dynamics. Under such dynamics, multiple cooperating BSs for the service of a “smart thing,” referred to as coordinated multipoint (CoMP), become a feasible solution by effectively improving communication reliability. To the best of knowledge, this is the first work to consider CoMP uplink transmission to alleviate outage caused by energy harvesting of BSs in IoT. A simple CoMP uplink transmission scheme is proposed for each node of IoT to transmit to two cooperating BSs in a K-tier heterogeneous network. The performance of the proposed scheme is analyzed using tools of stochastic geometry, in terms of availability and average rate, considering the effect of energy capacity, energy charging rate, in a K-tier heterogeneous network. Performance evaluation through extensive simulations are conducted and it is shown that the simulation results fit well with the analytical ones. The performance of the proposed scheme is then compared with that of the non-CoMP scheme, and it is found that the proposed scheme can significantly improve availability and average rate.