Performance analysis of cognitive radio networks with opportunistic RF energy harvesting

Radio frequency (RF) energy harvesting capability allows wireless nodes to harvest and convert ambient RF signal into energy supply for their operations and data transmission. Cognitive radio networks can employ such capability that enables secondary users to opportunistically not only transmit data on an idle channel, but also harvest RF energy from primary users´ transmission on a busy channel. In this paper, we propose a queueing model to analyze performance of the cognitive radio networks with opportunistic RF energy harvesting. The queueing model captures the channel state and considers multiple secondary users whose transmissions are scheduled using the round-robin policy. Then, we introduce a simple network selection strategy for the secondary users. We also develop an analytical model to analyze the network selection decision at the steady state.