The use of a wireless sensor network to monitor an area of interest for possible hazardous events has become a common practice. The difficulty of replacing or recharging sensor batteries dictates the use of energy harvesting as a means to extend the network’s lifetime. To this end, energy beamforming is used in a millimeter wave wireless power sensor network with randomly deployed nodes. A simple protocol is proposed that allows nodes to report their charging conditions in an effort to select efficient energy-beamforming strategies. Analytical expressions for the probability of successful information reception and successful reporting are provided for two benchmark schemes: the random and the circular energy-beamforming scheme. A Markov chain is used for the former to model the energy level of sensor nodes. Simple sector selection strategies are presented and their performance, in terms of delay and failure information delivery, is assessed through simulations.

Various aspects of the detection of events in wireless powered communication networks (WPCN) are studied and analyzed under the assumption of highly noisy sensor measurements. In WPCN, networks sensor nodes’ stored energy is a scarce resource and must be treated sparingly. Frequent false alarm detections force superfluous transmissions, thus depleting nodes’ energy storage. This has an adverse effect on the probability of successful transmission of the information message and its delay in case of a true positive detection. In this work, the detection problem is approached using an optimal stopping framework, where the involved likelihoods are highly unstable due to the noisy measurements. A classical AR filter is adopted in order to smooth the posterior likelihoods prior to their usage in the detection phase and its performance is contrasted to that of a novel Beta Particle Filter smoother. The effects of the smoothing filters on the achieved false alarm rate and detection delay are examined using numerical and simulation results. Moreover, the assessment of the detection process takes into account critical WPCN parameters, such as the charging efficiency and the location of the sensors, thus aiding the system design.

No abstract