Reward Maximization for Embedded Systems with Renewable Energies

Renewable energies can enable embedded systems to be functional indefinitely. In particular for small autonomous sensors, energy harvesting techniques have attracted much interest. This paper considers systems which provide services periodically with adjustable quality evaluated in terms of rewards. The reward garnered for one service is monotonically increasing and strictly concave with respect to the energy consumption of the service. There exist two major constraints which arise due to the burstiness of common energy sources: (1) The harvested energy is temporarily low and the service must be lowered or suspended. (2) During bursts, the harvested energy exceeds the battery capacity. To resolve these issues, we propose algorithms to derive optimal solutions which maximize the overall reward. Furthermore, we determine the minimum battery capacity necessary to optimally exploit a given power source. By applying real data recorded for photovoltaic cells as the harvested energy, simulations illuminate the merits of our algorithms.