Throughput analysis of multi-antenna based SWIPT relay network

Radio frequency (RF) energy harvesting is a promising solution to increase the lifetime of energy-constrained wireless sensor networks. In this paper, we studied the performance of simultaneous wireless information and power transfer (SWIPT) based multi-antenna decode and forward relay network where relay and destination can have multiple antennas. Energy constraint relay, first harvest energy from the source signal and uses harvested energy to forward the information to the destination, employing time switching (TS) receiver architecture. Deploying multiple antennas on relay and destination, we investigated its benefits using maximum ratio combining (MRC) and maximal ratio transmit (MRT) techniques in delay tolerant and delay limited transmission modes. We have analyzed our system numerically, in terms of throughput and outage. Through simulation results, we have provided key insights on possible benefits of using multiple antennas including throughput, outage, and harvested power.