Power Management Policies for AWGN Channels with Slow-Varying Harvested Energy

Abstract: In this paper, we study power management (PM) policies for an Energy Harvesting Additive White Gaussian Noise (EH-AWGN) channel. The arrival rate of the harvested energy is assumed to remain unchanged during each data frame (block code) and to change independently across block codes. The harvested energy sequence is known causally (online) at the transmitter. The transmitter is equipped with a rechargeable battery with infinite energy storage capacity. The transmitter is able to adapt the allocated energy and the corresponding transmission rate of each block according to a PM policy. Three novel online PM policies are established. The policies are universal, in the sense of the distribution of the harvested energy, and simple, in the sense of complexity, and asymptotically optimal, in the sense of maximum achievable average rates (throughput) taken over a long-term horizon of blocks.