Energy-Adaptive Modulation for RF Power Management under Renewable Energy

Abstract

This paper presents a new power management technique for RF circuits powered by renewable energy sources. Different from conventional systems, the performance of self-powered RF circuits is largely constrained by two factors: time-varying fading channel conditions and non-deterministic renewable energy levels. The proposed technique dynamically adjusts the base band modulation scheme to deal with these two factors in a coherent manner in order to maximize the data rate of RF circuits. Some practical issues, such as battery aging, have been investigated. The proposed technique is shown to be robust and insensitive to these issues. Simulation results demonstrate that the proposed technique outperforms conventional approaches based on fixed modulation schemes under various conditions.