Battery size optimization for energy harvesting wireless nodes

Abstract

In this paper, we determine the optimal battery capacity for an energy harvesting wireless node. The goal is to achieve transmission performances similar to an identical system, but with infinitely large battery. In our previous work, addressing a node without any energy storage constraints, we proposed a policy to optimize instantaneous transmission rate in order to maximize the average transmission rate. Extending this idea we now minimize the capacity of the storage unit whilst maintaining the optimal instantaneous transmission rate as in the case with infinite battery capacity. A mathematical formulation to derive such optimal capacity is in turn presented and verified.