Optimal Energy Beamforming to Minimize Transmit Power in Multi Antennae Wireless Powered Communication Network

Abstract

In this paper, we study the transmit power minimization problem with optimal energy beamforming in a multi-antenna wireless powered communication network (WPCN). The considered network consists of one hybrid access point (H-AP) with multiple antennae and multiple users with a single antenna each. The H-AP broadcasts an energy signal on downlink, using energy beamforming to enhance the efficiency of the transmit energy. In this paper, we jointly optimize the downlink time allocation for wireless energy transfer (WET), the uplink time allocation for each user to send a wireless information signal to the H-AP, the power allocation to each user on uplink, and the downlink energy beamforming vectors while controlling the transmit power at the H-AP. It is challenging to solve this non-convex complex optimization problem, because it is numerically intractable and involves high computational complexity. We exploit a sequential parametric convex approximation (SPCA)-based iterative method, and we propose optimal and sub-optimal solutions for the transmit power minimization problem. All the proposed schemes are verified by numerical simulations. Through the simulation results, we present the performance of the proposed schemes based on the effect of the number of transmit antennae and the number of users in the proposed WPCN. Through the performance evaluation, we show that the SPCA-based joint optimization solution performance is superior to other solutions.