One of the main concerns in traditional wireless sensor networks (WSNs) is energy efficiency. In this work, we analyze two techniques that can extend network lifetime. The first is ambient energy harvesting (EH), i.e., the capability of the devices to gather energy from the environment, whereas the second is wireless energy transfer (ET), that can be used to exchange energy among devices. We study the combination of these techniques, showing that they can be used jointly to improve the system performance. We consider a transmitter-receiver pair, showing how the ET improvement depends upon the statistics of the energy arrivals and the energy consumption of the devices. With the aim of maximizing a reward function, e.g., the average transmission rate, we find performance upper bounds with and without ET, define both online and offline optimization problems, and present results based on realistic energy arrivals in indoor and outdoor environments. We show that ET can significantly improve the system performance even when a sizable fraction of the transmitted energy is wasted and that, in some scenarios, the online approach can obtain close to optimal performance.
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