Precise Wireless Charging in Complicated Environments

Abstract

Wireless Rechargeable Sensor Networks (WRSNs) have become an important research issue as they can overcome the energy bottleneck problem of wireless sensor networks. However, inaccurate discretization methods and imprecise charging models yield a huge gap between theoretical results and practical applications, making it difficult for wide adoptions. In this paper, we focus on designing a precise charging method for maximizing charging utility when line-of-sight (LOS) and none-line-of-sight (NLOS) charging cases exist in complicated environments. First, we design discretization methods for charging area and charging orientation for precisely constructing the charging model. Then, we develop a novel electromagnetic wave reflection model to describe the signal propagation model in the presence of obstacles. We formalize the mobile charging problem into a submodular function maximization problem which can be solved by a proposed algorithm with an approximation guarantee. Finally, extensive experiments and simulations demonstrate that our schemes outperform comparison algorithms by 32.5% on average in charging utility in complicated environments.