Suboptimal Power Splitting of Energy Harvesting in Cooperative Communication System

Energy harvesting (EH) in the cooperative communication system has been intensively investigated as an emerging research issue. The energy harvesting has two protocols, power splitting and time switching, for processing information simultaneously and harvesting energy at relays. However, an optimal power splitting or time switching of the EH gets less attention. In this paper, we study a suboptimal power splitting ratio of the energy harvesting over Rician and Rayleigh fading in the cooperative communication system. Two scenarios for fading channel are considered for the link of source to relay and the link of the relay to the destination in the system. Then, a suboptimal power splitting ratio is obtained by calculating the expectation value of Rayleigh fading and Rician fading. Simulation results show that the average throughput over Rician fading is higher than that over Rayleigh fading. Furthermore, the K factor for Rician fading has influenced the average throughput of the system.