In this paper, we propose a hybrid protocol for energy harvesting in wireless relay networks, which combines the benefits of both time-switching relaying (TSR) and power-splitting relaying (PSR), which are two main protocols for energy harvesting. In TSR, a dedicated harvesting time in each time slot is allocated for energy harvesting, while the remaining time is used for information transmission. In PSR, a portion of received power is split for energy harvesting. TSR can simplify the hardware compared to PSR, but reduce the throughput or achievable rate of the system. Specifically, we conduct a rigorous analysis to derive the closed-form formulas for performance factors of the system. We deliver the analysis results for various transmission modes: instantaneous transmission, delay-limited transmission, and delay-tolerant transmission, which are different from each other on the availability of statistical information about the channels between source and relay nodes. The results are also confirmed by Monte Carlo simulation. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Performance Analysis of General Hybrid TSR-PSR Energy Harvesting Protocol for Amplify-and-Forward Half-Duplex Relaying Networks
