Diversity Combining for RF Energy Harvesting

Abstract

RF energy harvesting (RFEH) is a promising technology for energy requirements of wireless communication nodes. However, providing sufficient amount of energy to ensure selfsufficient devices based on RFEH may be challenging. In this paper, the use of diversity combining in RFEH systems is proposed to increase the amount of harvested energy. The power consumption of diversity combining process is also taken into account to analyze the net benefit of diversity combining. Performances of RFEH systems are investigated for selection combining (SC), equal gain combining (EGC), and maximal ratio combining (MRC) techniques. Simulations are conducted to compare the numerical results of SC, EGC, and MRC, and the results show that although the diversity combining techniques can improve the energy harvesting performance, the power consumption parameters have a critical importance while determining the suitable technique.

Impact of transmission techniques in asymmetric RF/FSO system over Nakagami‐m and gamma‐gamma fading channels with pointing errors

“…The received diversity on the other hand is usually employed at the receiver side and the maximum ratio combining, equal gain combining, and selection combining (SC) are the most common types. Based on the complexity of implementing these diversity techniques, SC is the simplest among the techniques in which the receiver requires only the highest SNR from the transmitter signals …”