On Optimal Offline Time Sharing Policy for Energy Harvesting Underlay Cognitive Radio

Abstract: RF energy harvesting can be used to power communication devices so that perpetual operation of such devices can be ensured. We consider a RF energy harvesting underlay cognitive radio system operating in slotted fashion. The primary user (PU) is equipped with a reliable power source and transmits with a constant power in all the slots. However, the secondary user (SU) harvests energy from primary's transmission and simultaneously transmits it's own data such that interference at the primary receiver (PR) remains below an acceptable threshold. At the secondary transmitter (ST), each time slot is divided into two phases: energy harvesting (EH) phase and information transfer (IT) phase. We formulated the problem of maximizing the achievable secondary sum rate under primary receiver's protection criteria as a convex optimization problem and obtained the optimal time sharing between EH and IT phase, and optimal secondary transmit power under offline setting. The optimal offline scheme is then compared with an online myopic policy, where the optimal time sharing between EH and IT phase, and optimal secondary transmit power are obtained based on instantaneous channel gains only.