Optimal scheduling for energy harvesting sources on time varying wireless channels

In this paper, we consider a source node that operates over a time varying channel with energy harvesting capability. The goal of the source is to maximize the average number of successfully delivered packets per time slot. The source is able to choose whether to transmit a packet or defer the transmission in each time slot. The decision which is chosen by the source depends on the channel information available and the length of the energy queue. We formulate the problem of finding the optimal policy as a Markovian decision problem (MDP). We show some properties of the value function that represents the discounted number of successfully delivered packets per time slot. We prove that the optimal policy is a threshold type policy depending on the state of the channel and the length of the energy queue.