Open-loop end-to-end transmission for multihop opportunistic networks with energy-harvesting devices

Networks formed by energy-harvesting devices impose new technological challenges on data transmission due to uncertainty of the amount of energy that can be harvested. This is even more challenging with multihop networks, in which transmission outage occurs when one single device along the relay path cannot harvest enough energy. A virtual multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) model for multihop, multipath networks has recently been developed to facilitate reliable open-loop end-to-end transmissions, making networks robust to random transmission outages without the necessity of bandwidth-consuming and complicated end-to-end feedback and control. In this paper, a framework based on a virtual MIMO model of multihop, multipath opportunistic networks formed by energy-harvesting devices is developed. We propose rotated-algebraic path-time codes (RA-PTC), by which data are encoded using Givens rotation and cyclic division algebras. Without rate loss, a form of time diversity is exploited by repeatedly transmitting the RA-PTC-coded data. Extensive theoretical analyses are carried out using amount of fading and diversity as metrics. Both the performance enhancement due to the proposed RA-PTC and the performance loss due to energy shortage are quantified. Furthermore, a simple yet effective cyclic power control is proposed to improve transmission reliability. Numerical results demonstrate that RA-PTC and cyclic power control enable efficient and reliable end-to-end transmission in multipath, multihop opportunistic networks formed by energy-harvesting devices.