Analysis of Asymmetric Dual-Hop Energy Harvesting-Based Wireless Communication Systems in Mixed Fading Environments

This work investigates the performance of a dual-hop energy harvesting-based fixed-gain amplify-and-forward relaying communication system, subject to fading impairments. We consider a source node ( {S} ) communicating with a destination node ( {D} ), either directly or through a fixed distant relay ( {R} ), which harvests energy from its received signals and uses it to amplify and forward the received signals to {D}. We also consider maximal-ratio combining at {D} to combine the signals coming from {S} and {R}. Both power-splitting and time-switching energy harvesting protocols are investigated. The {S}\,\,-\,\,{R} link is modeled by Nakagami- {m} fading model, while the {R}\,\,-\,\,{D} and {S}\,\,-\,\,{D} links experience \alpha - μ fading. Closed-form expressions for the statistical properties of the total signal-to-noise ratio are derived, based on which novel closed-form expressions are then derived for the average symbol error rate as well as for the average channel capacity, considering four different adaptive transmission policies. The derived expressions are validated through Monte Carlo simulations. © 2017 IEEE.