Throughput Performance of an Energy-Efficient Protocol for Two-Hop Cognitive Networks with Energy Harvesting Relays

Abstract

We consider a two-hop underlay cognitive radio network (CRN) in which the secondary relay (SR) harvests energy from the secondary source (SS) before commencing two- hop transmission. During the energy harvesting phase, energy is transmitted in packets of small size followed by a silent intervals in which the relay provides a one-bit feedback. Without any need to pass channel estimates to a central node, this model allows for charging time to be optimally varied. Proposed scheme is shown to be energy efficient. A closed-form expression for the throughput is derived. Derived analytical throughput expression is verified by the computer simulations.