This paper was converted on www.awesomepapers.org from LaTeX by an anonymous user.
Want to know more? Visit the Converter page.

IRS-Assisted RF-powered IoT Networks: System Modeling and Performance Analysis

Hongguang Sun,  Zelun Zhao, Hu Cheng,  Jiangbin Lyu,   Xijun Wang,   Yan Zhang,  and Tony Q. S. Quek H. Sun, Z. Zhao, and H. Cheng are with the College of Information Engineering, Northwest A&F University, Yangling 712100, China (e-mail: [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]). J. Lyu is with the School of Informatics, Xiamen University, China 361005 (e-mail: [email protected]). X. Wang is with the School of Electronics and Information Technology, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou 510006, China (e-mail: [email protected]). Y. Zhang is with the State Key Laboratory of Integrated Service Networks, Xidian University, Xi’an 710071, China (e-mail: [email protected]). T. Q. S. Quek is with the Information Systems Technology and Design Pillar, Singapore University of Technology and Design, Singapore 487372, and also with the National Cheng Kung University, Taiwan. (e-mail: [email protected]).
Abstract

Emerged as a promising solution for future wireless communication systems, intelligent reflecting surface (IRS) is capable of reconfiguring the wireless propagation environment by adjusting the phase-shift of a large number of reflecting elements. To quantify the gain achieved by IRSs in the radio frequency (RF) powered Internet of Things (IoT) networks, in this work, we consider an IRS-assisted cellular-based RF-powered IoT network, where the cellular base stations (BSs) broadcast energy signal to IoT devices for energy harvesting (EH) in the charging stage, which is utilized to support the uplink (UL) transmissions in the subsequent UL stage. With tools from stochastic geometry, we first derive the distributions of the average signal power and interference power which are then used to obtain the energy coverage probability, UL coverage probability, overall coverage probability, spatial throughput and power efficiency, respectively. With the proposed analytical framework, we finally evaluate the effect on network performance of key system parameters, such as IRS density, IRS reflecting element number, charging stage ratio, etc. Compared with the conventional RF-powered IoT network, IRS passive beamforming brings the same level of enhancement in both energy coverage and UL coverage, leading to the unchanged optimal charging stage ratio when maximizing spatial throughput.

Index Terms:
Intelligent reflecting surface, Internet of Things, RF-powered IoT network, coverage probability, spatial throughput, power efficiency, stochastic geometry.

I Introduction

With the booming Internet of Things (IoT), the number of IoT devices is expected to reach tens of billions. To meet the vision of sustainable development of the IoTs, an efficient utilization of energy has been served as the principal issue. Recent advances in wireless energy harvesting (EH) technology, particularly radio frequency (RF) EH [1], have broken new ground to support IoT devices to collect energy from natural energy sources or ambient RF sources. It gave birth to the wireless powered communication networks (WPCNs) [2] in which wireless nodes harvest energy from the base station (BS) RF signals and then transmit information by using the harvested energy. However, one of the major technical challenges in WPCN is the low efficiency of power transmission over long distances, resulting in the limited amount of energy harvested and poor network performance.
In recent years, the application of intelligent reflect surface (IRS) technology has attracted extensive attention in wireless communications from both academia and industry. Served as a promising candidate technology for future wireless communications, IRS can smartly reconfigure the wireless channels by electronically configuring the absorption, reflection, refraction and phases via tuning the IRS reflecting elements or meta-atoms [3][4]. Compared with the traditional active relaying or beamforming scheme, the passive reflection of IRSs consumes very limited energy by adopting the low-cost elements [5]. Moreover, by properly adjusting the phase-shift of the IRS reflecting elements, the coverage probability, network throughput and energy efficiency can be greatly improved.
Using IRSs to boost the availability of WPCNs, IRS-assisted WPCN can be served as a potential network paradigm for future wireless communications. Understanding the gain achieved by IRSs in RF-powered IoT network is of great significance to speed up the application of IRSs and also help in the ingenious design of IRS-assisted WPCNs. The application of IRSs in WPCNs has been discussed in the very recent works [6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13]. The authors in [6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13] considered the IRS-assisted WPCN scenarios under the NOMA scheme. Specifically, the authors in [6] proved that utilizing different IRS phase-shifts for downlink (DL) EH and uplink (UL) packet transmission is not needed for the optimization of network throughput when NOMA is adopted. In [7], the sum-throughput was maximized by jointly optimizing the transmit power, transmit time and IRS beamforming. In [8], efficient schemes were proposed to maximize the UL sum rate by optimizing the resource allocation, reflection coefficients and beamformers. A self-sustainable IRS-empowered multi-user WPCN was considered in [9], where the IRS acts as a relay to enhance the network performance in both DL EH and UL information transmissions. In [10], the authors proposed to minimize the energy consumption of the hybrid access point (HAP) by jointly optimizing the transmit power, power-switching factor, time allocation, and IRS phase-shifting. The authors in [11] studied an IRS-assisted multi-user multiple-input single-output (MISO) WPCN, in which the energy transmission time, the user transmit power, and the active and passive beamforming in DL energy collection and UL information transmissions were jointly optimized. In [12], the authors presented an IRS-assisted wireless powered caching network, in which the HAP maintains a local cache to store the popular contents for IoT devices. Given the imperfect CSI, the authors in [13] formulated a HAP transmit energy minimization problem by jointly optimizing HAP energy beamforming, receiving beamforming, etc. However, all the schemes designed in [6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13] were limited to the small-scale network scenario with only one BS and a single IRS, in which the distances between the BS, the IRS and user equipments (UEs) are fixed and pre-determined. What’s more, the location of IRS is assumed to be fixed, and the influence of interference is not considered. It’s unknown whether these schemes are applicable to the practical multi-cell WPCNs.
In such a network, the spatial randomness of node locations, the time-varying channel fading, and the resulted complicated signal and interference distributions (caused by the reflection of IRSs) made it extremely difficult to evaluate the gain achieved by IRSs. To address the aforementioned challenges, stochastic geometry has been explored over the past few years as a powerful tool in obtaining the average spatial system-level analysis of randomly deployed wireless networks, including cellular networks, and heterogeneous networks [14, 15, 16, 17]. With this tool, the spatial randomness of node locations are modeled by some classical point processes, such as Poisson point process (PPP), and Poisson cluster process (PCP). Very recently, stochastic geometry has been introduced to analyze the performance of IRS-assisted cellular networks [18]. Specifically, in [18, 19, 20, 21, 22], the authors characterized the DL coverage probability and spatial throughput of the IRS-assisted cellular network, which exhibited the gain achieved by IRSs on network throughput. In [19], the authors demonstrated the superiority of equipping IRSs to the blockages. In [20], the authors evaluated the performance of a millimeter wave (mmWave) network in which the average achievable rate was obtained by deriving the Laplace Transform of of the aggregated interference from all BSs and IRSs. In [21], an analytical framework was proposed to analyze the performance of a DL IRS-assisted cellular network in which the coverage probability, ergodic capacity, and energy efficiency were derived. In [22], the authors considered an IRS-aided multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) network in which the outage probabilities, ergodic rates, spectral efficiency and energy efficiency were obtained. Very recently, IRSs have also been integrated with secure communication systems to defend against eavesdropping attacks and enhance the security performance [23, 24, 25].
To the best of our knowledge, there is no related works characterizing the performance of the large-scale IRS-assisted RF-powered IoT networks with tools from stochastic geometry. In such a network, the gain achieved by distributed IRSs in EH and information transfer is required to be quantified by considering the complicated network interference environment.

In this work, we consider an IRS-assisted cellular-based RF-powered IoT network, where IRSs help IoT devices harvest ambient RF energy from DL cellular transmissions in the charging stage, and assist UL transmissions in the subsequent UL stage. The main contributions of our work are summarized as follows:

  • We propose an analytical framework for IRS-assisted cellular-based RF-powered IoT network, in which the locations of BSs, IoT devices, and IRSs are modeled by three independent PPPs. The IoT devices are battery-less and solely powered by the cellular networks. Each time slot is assumed to be divided into two stages: i) charging stage, in which each IoT device harvests energy from the RF signals transmitted by BSs and reflected by the passive IRSs, and ii) UL stage, in which IoT devices with sufficient energy can transmit information to their associated BSs with the help of IRSs by taking into account the fractional power control strategy. For an IoT device, the passive beamforming scheme is adopted at its associated IRS in the whole time slot to accelerate the energy harvested by the IoT device and enhance the received signal power at its associated BS.

  • With the Gamma approximation method, we first characterize the signal power distributions in both charging and UL stages, and the interference distribution in the UL stages, based on which we further derive the tractable expressions of the energy coverage probability in the charging stage, the UL coverage probability in the UL stage, the overall coverage probability, the spatial throughput and the power efficency, respectively. We then evaluate the influence of some key system parameters, such as BS density, IRS density and IRS reflecting element number on the derived performance metrics.

  • Compared with the conventional RF-powered IoT network, IRS passive beamforming significantly enhances the harvested signal power in the charging stage and the desired signal power in the UL stage, both of which are shown to scale with the number of IRS reflecting element NN in the same order of O(N2)O(N^{2}), while only slightly increasing the interference power. With the objective to maximize the network spatial throughput, the proposed framework allows to find the optimal charging stage ratio of the IRS-assisted RF-powered IoT network, which is shown to be the same as that without IRSs due to the same level of enhancement contributed by IRS passive beamforming on energy coverage and UL coverage.

II SYSTEM MODEL

II-A Network Model

In this paper, we consider an IRS-assisted cellular-based IoT network where the IoT devices are battery-less and solely powered by the ambient RF energy only from cellular transmissions [26][27]. We focus on the UL transmission, where the energy required by an IoT device to transmit in a given time slot should be harvested in the same time slot. Specifically, all IoT devices are assumed to adopt the time-switching receiver architecture, with which an IoT device first harvests energy for a fraction of time and then transmits packets for the rest of time. As is shown in Fig. 1(a), each time slot is divided into the charging stage and UL stage with durations Tch=τTT_{\rm{ch}}=\tau T and Ttr=(1τ)TT_{\rm{tr}}=(1-\tau)T, in which TT is the duration of each time slot, and τ\tau is defined as the charging stage ratio. The antenna switching time between the two stages is neglected to facilitate the analysis. The IoT device is assumed to have a supercapacitor with large charging and discharging rates to store and use the harvested energy during the same time slot. The remaining energy by the end of the time slot is assumed to be unavailable for the future transmissions taking into account the large leakage current of the supercapacitor [28]. We assume that both BSs and IoT devices are equipped with the single antenna. The BSs are assumed to have the same height HBH_{\rm{B}} with horizontal locations following a 2-dimensional (2D) PPP ΛB\Lambda_{\rm{B}} of density λB\lambda_{\rm{B}}. Distributed IRSs are deployed to assist in both EH and UL transmissions, which are of the same height HIH_{\rm{I}} with the horizontal locations being modeled by a 2D PPP ΛI\Lambda_{\rm{I}} of density λI\lambda_{\rm{I}}. IoT devices are scattered according to a PPP Λu\Lambda_{\rm{u}} of density λu\lambda_{\rm{u}}. We adopt the orthogonal multiple access technology, such that only one IoT device within a cell can be active at any given time slot and sub-channel.

Refer to caption
(a) The process of IRS-assisted RF-powered IoT network during the whole time slot with τ\tau and TT being the charging stage ratio, and the duration of one time slot, respectively.
Refer to caption
(b) IRS-assisted EH during the charging stage.
Refer to caption
(c) IRS-assisted UL transmissions during the UL stage.
Figure 1: An illustration of the IRS-assisted cellular-based RF-powered IoT network.

We assume open access and consider the nearest association policy, with which a given IoT device associates with the nearest BS, as well as the nearest IRS. According to Slivnyak’s theorem [29], it is sufficient to focus on a typical IoT device, referred to as UE 0 which is located at the origin and assumed to associate with BS 0 and IRS 0 (Fig. 1(b) and 1(c)). We define xmx_{m}, djd_{j} and rm,jr_{m,j} as the 2D distance from the BS mm to UE 0, the 2D distance from the IRS jj to UE 0, and the 2D distance from the BS mm to IRS jj, respectively. Considering the limited reflective capability of an IRS, we define a practical local region of radius DD with the typical UE 0 being the center, so that each IRS can only provide services for a limited number of UEs nearby. We denote IRSs within the local region by the set ȷ{jΛI|djD}\jmath\triangleq\left\{j\in\Lambda_{\rm{I}}|d_{j}\leq D\right\}. Due to the densely deployed IRSs, we assume that there exists at least one IRS within set ȷ\jmath, and ignore the case ȷ=\jmath=\varnothing. We consider the worst case where all IRSs are in working state no matter whether there are IoT devices to associate with, such that all IRSs can reflect the signal/interference from co-channel BSs to the typical UE 0. Considering the severe attenuation of wireless signals, the interference reflected by far away IRSs can be neglected. Thus, to simplify the analysis, we assume that only IRSs within set ȷ\jmath contribute interference to the typical UE 0.

II-B IRS-Assisted EH and UL Transmission

As is shown in Fig.1(b), in the charging stage, all the BSs are served as RF chargers to broadcast energy signals. In Fig.1(c), during the UL stage, the IoT device with sufficient harvested energy transmits packets to its served BS. In both stages, all the IRSs within set ȷ\jmath provide signal enhancement via random scattering or passive beamforming. Specially, to assist the EH and UL transmissions of UE 0, dedicated passive beamforming is adopted at its associated IRS 0, while other IRSs within DD only scatter the incident signal of BS 0.
To support the UL transmission, the energy collected in the charging stage should reach a certain energy threshold EminE_{\rm{min}}, which is defined as the minimum energy required for the subsequent UL transmission. We adopt the fractional power control strategy for IoT devices where the transmit power of the typical IoT device is ρ(x02+HB2)ϵα/2\rho(x_{0}^{2}+H_{\text{B}}^{2})^{\epsilon\alpha/2} with x0x_{0} denoting the 2D distance between UE 0 and its serving BS, ρ\rho is the BS receiver sensitivity, and the symbol ϵ(0,1]\epsilon\in(0,1] is defined as the power control parameter. According to the fractional power control strategy, EminE_{\rm{min}} is given by

Emin=(1τ)Tρ(x02+HB2)ϵα2.\small E_{\rm{min}}=(1-\tau)T\rho(x_{0}^{2}+H_{\text{B}}^{2})^{\frac{\epsilon\alpha}{2}}. (1)

Define EhE_{\rm{h}} as the energy harvested by UE 0 during a charging stage, and UE 0 is allowed to transmit during the subsequent UL stage, as long as EhEminE_{\text{h}}\geq E_{\rm{min}} is satisfied.

II-C Channel Model

For the sake of simplicity, we assume single antenna for both BSs and UEs, and define NN as the number of reflecting elements per IRS. We consider both the large-scale path loss and small-scale fading to characterize the channel model. For large-scale fading, the path loss exponent of BSs and IRSs is denoted by α\alpha with α>2\alpha>2. We consider Rayleigh fading111 Rician fading or other channel fading models can also be suitable for the proposed analytical framework, in this paper we assume the worst-case propagation conditions for IRS, so as to obtain the lower bound of the achievable performance by IRS-assisted WPCN. with unit power for the small-scale fading, which leads to an exponential channel power gain. Define σ2\sigma^{2} as the additive white Gaussian noise (AWGN). In the following, we discuss the channel model in charging stage and UL stage, respectively.

II-C1 Charging Stage

In the charging stage, it is necessary to measure how much energy has been collected at the typical IoT device which depends upon the channel power gain. The baseline equivalent channels between BS mm and IRS jj, between IRS jj and UE 0, and between BS mm and UE 0 are represented by 𝒂i,m(j)[ai,m,1(j),,ai,m,N(j)]N×1,𝒂r(j)[ar,1(j),,ar,N(j)]N×1\boldsymbol{a}_{{\rm{i}},m}^{(j)}\triangleq\left[a_{{\rm{i}},m,1}^{(j)},\cdots,a_{{\rm{i}},m,N}^{(j)}\right]^{\intercal}\in\mathbb{C}^{N\times 1},\boldsymbol{a}_{\rm{r}}^{(j)}\triangleq\left[a_{\rm{r},1}^{(j)},\cdots,a_{{\rm{r}},N}^{(j)}\right]^{\intercal}\in\mathbb{C}^{N\times 1}, and ad,ma_{{\rm{d}},m}\in\mathbb{C}, respectively, where the symbols []\left[\cdot\right]^{\intercal} and \mathbb{C} denote the matrix transpose and the collection of complex numbers, respectively222The subscripts “i”, “r” and “d” represent the BS-to-IRS channel, the IRS-to-UE channel and direct BS-to-UE channel, respectively.. Define ϕ(j)[ϕ1(j),,ϕN(j)]\phi^{(j)}\triangleq\left[\phi_{1}^{(j)},\cdots,\phi_{N}^{(j)}\right] and 𝚽(j)diag{[eiϕ1(j),,eiϕN(j)]}\boldsymbol{\Phi}^{(j)}\triangleq\rm{diag}\left\{\left[e^{\boldsymbol{\text{i}}\phi_{1}^{(j)}},\cdots,e^{\boldsymbol{\text{i}}\phi_{N}^{(j)}}\right]\right\} (i denotes the imaginary unit) as the phase-shift matrix of IRS jj, where ϕn(j)[0,2π)\phi_{n}^{(j)}\in\left[0,2\pi\right) is the phase-shift of the element nn of IRS jj on the incident signal. To achieve the maximal beamforming gain from IRS, we presume that the reflection coefficient of each reflecting element can achieve the unit amplitude [30]. Therefore, the cascaded BS-IRS-UE channel which is divided into BS-IRS transmission, IRS reflecting with beamforming, and IRS-UE transmission, is given by

air,m(j)[𝒂i,m(j)]𝚽(j)𝒂r(j)=n=1Nai,m,n(j)ar,n(j)eiϕn(j),mΛB.\small a_{{\rm{ir}},m}^{(j)}\triangleq\left[\boldsymbol{a}_{\rm{i},m}^{(j)}\right]^{\intercal}\boldsymbol{\Phi}^{(j)}\boldsymbol{a}_{\rm{r}}^{(j)}=\sum_{n=1}^{N}{a_{{\rm{i}},m,n}^{(j)}a_{{\rm{r}},n}^{(j)}e^{\boldsymbol{\text{i}}\phi_{n}^{(j)}}},m\in\Lambda_{\rm{B}}. (2)

The channel power gains between BS mm-UE 0, between BS mΛBm\in\Lambda_{\rm{B}} and the element nn of IRS jj, and between the element nn of IRS jj and UE 0 are, respectively, is given by

|ad,m|2gd,mωd,m,|ai,m,n(j)|2gi,m(j)ωi,m,n(j),|ar,n(j)|2gr(j)ωr,n(j)\small|a_{{\rm{d}},m}|^{2}\triangleq g_{{\rm{d}},m}\omega_{{\rm{d}},m},\quad|a_{{\rm{i}},m,n}^{(j)}|^{2}\triangleq g_{{\rm{i}},m}^{(j)}\omega_{{\rm{i}},m,n}^{(j)},\quad|a_{{\rm{r}},n}^{(j)}|^{2}\triangleq g_{\rm{r}}^{(j)}\omega_{{\rm{r}},n}^{(j)} (3)

In (3), gd,m=β(xm2+HB2)α/2g_{{\rm{d}},m}=\beta\left(x_{m}^{2}+H_{\rm{B}}^{2}\right)^{-\alpha/2}, gi,m(j)=β(rm,j2+(HBHI)2)α/2g_{{\rm{i}},m}^{(j)}=\beta\left(r_{m,j}^{2}+\left(H_{\rm{B}}-H_{\rm{I}}\right)^{2}\right)^{-\alpha/2} and gr(j)=β(dj2+HI2)α/2g_{\rm{r}}^{(j)}=\beta\left(d_{j}^{2}+H_{\rm{I}}^{2}\right)^{-\alpha/2} denote the corresponding average channel power gains, ωd,m\omega_{{\rm{d}},m}, ωi,m,n(j)\omega_{{\rm{i}},m,n}^{(j)} and ωr,n(j)\omega_{{\rm{r}},n}^{(j)} are the small scale fading, and β=(4πfc/c)2\beta=\left(4\pi f_{c}/c\right)^{-2} is the average channel power gain at a reference distance of 1 m with fcf_{c} being the carrier frequency, and c=3.0×108(m/s)c=3.0\times 10^{8}\;(m/s) denoting the light speed. To reveal the effectiveness of IRSs in assisting the performance of commercial 5G networks operating on sub-6 GHz, we consider fc=2f_{\text{c}}=2 GHz as the carrier frequency.

II-C2 UL Stage

For the UL stage, the baseband equivalent channels between UE kk and IRS jj, between IRS jj and BS 0, and between UE kk and BS 0 are denoted by 𝒃i,k(j)[bi,k,1(j),,bi,k,n(j)]N×1,𝒃r(j)[br,1(j),,br,N(j)]N×1\boldsymbol{b}_{{\rm{i}},k}^{(j)}\triangleq\left[b_{\rm{i},k,1}^{(j)},\cdots,b_{{\rm{i}},k,n}^{(j)}\right]^{\intercal}\in\mathbb{C}^{N\times 1},\boldsymbol{b}_{\rm{r}}^{(j)}\triangleq\left[b_{\rm{r},1}^{(j)},\cdots,b_{{\rm{r}},N}^{(j)}\right]^{\intercal}\in\mathbb{C}^{N\times 1}, and bd,kb_{{\rm{d}},k}\in\mathbb{C}, respectively. Define φ(j)[φ1(j),,φN(j)]\varphi^{(j)}\triangleq\left[\varphi_{1}^{(j)},\cdots,\varphi_{N}^{(j)}\right] and 𝚿(j)diag{[eiφ1(j),,eiφN(j)]}\boldsymbol{\Psi}^{(j)}\triangleq\rm{diag}\left\{\left[e^{\boldsymbol{\text{i}}\varphi_{1}^{(j)}},\cdots,e^{\boldsymbol{\text{i}}\varphi_{N}^{(j)}}\right]\right\} as the phase-shifting matrix of IRS jj, of which φn(j)[0,2π)\varphi_{n}^{(j)}\in\left[0,2\pi\right) represents the phase-shift of reflecting element nn on the incoming signal. Therefore, the cascaded UE-IRS-BS channel can be decomposed into three components: UE-IRS transmission, IRS reflecting, and IRS-BS transmission, expressed as

bir,k(j)[𝒃i,k(j)]𝚿(j)𝒃r(j)=n=1Nbi,k,n(j)br,n(j)eiφn(j),kΛu.\small b_{{\rm{ir}},k}^{(j)}\triangleq\left[\boldsymbol{b}_{\rm{i},k}^{(j)}\right]^{\intercal}\boldsymbol{\Psi}^{(j)}\boldsymbol{b}_{\rm{r}}^{(j)}=\sum_{n=1}^{N}{b_{{\rm{i}},k,n}^{(j)}b_{{\rm{r}},n}^{(j)}e^{\boldsymbol{\text{i}}\varphi_{n}^{(j)}}},k\in\Lambda_{\rm{u}}. (4)

The channel power gains between UE kk and BS 0, between UE kk and the element nn of IRS jj, and between the element nn of IRS jj and BS 0 are, respectively, given by

|bd,k|2fd,kξd,k,|bi,k,n(j)|2fi,k(j)ξi,k,n(j),|br,n(j)|2fr(j)ξr,n(j),|b_{{\rm{d}},k}|^{2}\triangleq f_{{\rm{d}},k}\xi_{{\rm{d}},k},\quad|b_{{\rm{i}},k,n}^{(j)}|^{2}\triangleq f_{{\rm{i}},k}^{(j)}\xi_{{\rm{i}},k,n}^{(j)},\quad|b_{{\rm{r}},n}^{(j)}|^{2}\triangleq f_{\rm{r}}^{(j)}\xi_{{\rm{r}},n}^{(j)}, (5)

where fd,k=β(yk2+HB2)α/2f_{{\rm{d}},k}=\beta(y_{k}^{2}+H_{\rm{B}}^{2})^{-\alpha/2}, fi,k(j)=β(dk,j2+HI2)α/2f_{{\rm{i}},k}^{(j)}=\beta(d_{k,j}^{2}+H_{\rm{I}}^{2})^{-\alpha/2} and fr(j)=β(rj2+(HBHI)2)α/2f_{\rm{r}}^{(j)}=\beta(r_{j}^{2}+(H_{\rm{B}}-H_{\rm{I}})^{2})^{-\alpha/2} denote the corresponding average channel power gains, ξd,k\xi_{{\rm{d}},k}, ξi,k,n(j)\xi_{{\rm{i}},k,n}^{(j)} and ξr,n(j)\xi_{{\rm{r}},n}^{(j)} are the small scale fading. The symbol yky_{k} denotes the horizontal distance from UE kk to the tagged BS, and DkD_{k} is the horizontal distance from the kk-th device to its associated BS. According to the fractional power control strategy, the transmit power of UE kk is ρ(Dk2+HB2)ϵα/2\rho\left(D_{k}^{2}+H_{\rm{B}}^{2}\right)^{\epsilon\alpha/2}. To determine the transmit power of UE kk, we obtain the distribution of DkD_{k} conditioned on yky_{k} in [14], which is given by

fDk(r|yk)=2πλurexp(λuπr2)1exp(πλuyk2),0ryk.\small f_{D_{k}}(r|y_{k})=\frac{2\pi\lambda_{\rm{u}}r\exp(-\lambda_{\rm{u}}\pi r^{2})}{1-\exp(-\pi\lambda_{\rm{u}}y_{k}^{2})},0\leq r\leq y_{k}. (6)

II-D Channel Power Statistics

To facilitate the performance analysis, we need to first derive the channel power statistics caused by the involvement of IRSs in charging stage and UL stage, respectively.

II-D1 Charging Stage

In the charging stage, IoT devices harvest energy from the RF signals of BSs with the help of IRSs. With regards to the typical UE 0, considering the link BS mm-IRS jj-UE 0 in (2), the reflected channel via element nn can be derived by

air,m,n(j)ai,m,n(j)ar,n(j)eiϕnj=|ai,m,n(j)||ar,n(j)|ei(ϕn(j)+ai,m,n(j)+ar,n(j)),\displaystyle a_{{\rm{ir}},m,n}^{(j)}\triangleq a_{{\rm{i}},m,n}^{(j)}a_{{\rm{r}},n}^{(j)}e^{\boldsymbol{\text{i}}\phi_{n}^{j}}=|a_{{\rm{i}},m,n}^{(j)}||a_{{\rm{r}},n}^{(j)}|e^{\boldsymbol{\text{i}}\left(\phi_{n}^{(j)}+\angle a_{{\rm{i}},m,n}^{(j)}+\angle a_{{\rm{r}},n}^{(j)}\right)}, (7)

where the channel amplitude |air,m,n(j)||ai,m,n(j)||ar,n(j)||a_{{\rm{ir}},m,n}^{(j)}|\triangleq|a_{{\rm{i}},m,n}^{(j)}||a_{{\rm{r}},n}^{(j)}|, and the cascade channel phase air,m,n(j)ϕn(j)+ai,m,n(j)+ar,n(j)\angle a_{{\rm{ir}},m,n}^{(j)}\triangleq\phi_{n}^{(j)}+\angle a_{{\rm{i}},m,n}^{(j)}+\angle a_{{\rm{r}},n}^{(j)}. What’s more, the amplitudes |ai,m,n(j)||a_{{\rm{i}},m,n}^{(j)}| and |ar,n(j)||a_{{\rm{r}},n}^{(j)}| follow the Rayleigh distribution with the scale parameters being gi,m(j)g^{(j)}_{{\rm{i}},m} and gr(j)g^{(j)}_{\rm{r}}, respectively. As a result, each channel amplitude |air,m,n(j)||a_{{\rm{ir}},m,n}^{(j)}| is a double-Rayleigh RV with independent |ai,m,n(j)||a_{{\rm{i}},m,n}^{(j)}| and |ar,n(j)||a_{{\rm{r}},n}^{(j)}|. We can derive the expectation and variance of |air,m,n(j)||a_{{\rm{ir}},m,n}^{(j)}| as

𝔼{|air,m,n(j)|}π4gi,m(j)gr(j),var{|air,m,n(j)|}(1π216)gi,m(j)gr(j).\small\mathbb{E}\left\{|a_{{\rm{ir}},m,n}^{(j)}|\right\}\triangleq\frac{\pi}{4}\sqrt{g_{{\rm{i}},m}^{(j)}g_{\rm{r}}^{(j)}},\quad{\rm{var}}\left\{|a_{{\rm{ir}},m,n}^{(j)}|\right\}\triangleq\left(1-\frac{\pi^{2}}{16}\right)g_{{\rm{i}},m}^{(j)}g_{\rm{r}}^{(j)}. (8)

According to the central limit theorem (CLT), the summation of NN independent and identically distributed (i.i.d.) RVs X1,X2,,XNX_{1},X_{2},\dots,X_{N}, i.e., Y=n=1NXnY=\sum_{n=1}^{N}X_{n} can be approximated as Gaussian distribution when NN is sufficiently large.
With the IRS-customized channel estimation method [31] [32], we can obtain the reflection cascade channel phase of each element on IRS 0. To be specific, IRS 0 can reconfigure each reflecting element’s phase-shift by setting ϕn(0)=(gi,0,n(0)gr,n(0)),(n=1,,N)\phi_{n}^{(0)}=-\angle(g_{{\rm{i}},0,n}^{(0)}g_{{\rm{r}},n}^{(0)}),(n=1,\dots,N), leading to the same phase of all NN reflected signals at UE 0, where gi,0,n(0)g_{{\rm{i}},0,n}^{(0)} and gr,n(0)g_{{\rm{r}},n}^{(0)} is defined as the average channel power gains of between BS 0 and the element nn of IRS jj and between the element nn of IRS jj and UE 0. As a result, the signal at the typical UE 0 is the sum of NN reflected signals. Thus, the BS 0-IRS 0-UE 0 channel can be derived by

|air,0(0)|=|𝒂i,0(0)||𝒂r(0)|=n=1N|ai,0,n(0)||ar,n(0)|,\small|a_{{\rm{ir}},0}^{(0)}|=|\boldsymbol{a}_{{\rm{i}},0}^{(0)}|^{\intercal}|\boldsymbol{a}_{\rm{r}}^{(0)}|=\sum_{n=1}^{N}{|a_{{\rm{i}},0,n}^{(0)}||a_{{\rm{r}},n}^{(0)}|}, (9)

which is the summation of NN i.i.d. double-Rayleigh RVs, the channel amplitude is approximated to follow the Gaussian distribution

|air,0(0)|approx.𝒩(Nπ4gi,0(0)gr(0),N(1π216)gi,0(0)gr(0)).\small|a_{{\rm{ir}},0}^{(0)}|\overset{\text{approx.}}{\sim}\mathcal{N}\left(N\frac{\pi}{4}\sqrt{g_{{\rm{i}},0}^{(0)}g^{(0)}_{{\rm{r}}}},N(1-\frac{\pi^{2}}{16})g_{{\rm{i}},0}^{(0)}g_{{\rm{r}}}^{(0)}\right). (10)

Therefore, the average signal power of the cascaded BS 0-IRS 0-UE 0 channel can be computed by the second moment of |air,0(0)||a_{{\rm{ir}},0}^{(0)}| which is obtained by

gir,0(0)𝔼{|air,0(0)|2}=[π216N2+(1π216)N]gi,0(0)gr(0),\small g_{{\rm{ir}},0}^{(0)}\triangleq\mathbb{E}\left\{|a_{{\rm{ir}},0}^{(0)}|^{2}\right\}=\left[\frac{\pi^{2}}{16}N^{2}+\left(1-\frac{\pi^{2}}{16}\right)N\right]g_{{\rm{i}},0}^{(0)}g_{\rm{r}}^{(0)}, (11)

where Gsc[π216N2+(1π216)N]G_{\rm{sc}}\triangleq[\frac{\pi^{2}}{16}N^{2}+(1-\frac{\pi^{2}}{16})N] denotes the beamforming coefficient of gi,0(0)gr(0)g_{{\rm{i}},0}^{(0)}g_{\rm{r}}^{(0)}, growing with NN in the order of O(N2)O(N^{2}).
With regards to any other IRS jȷj\in\jmath without providing beamforming for UE 0, it scatters the incident signal from BS mm randomly, leading to a uniformly random phase air,m,n(j)\angle a_{{\rm{ir}},m,n}^{(j)} based on ai,m,n(j)\angle a_{{\rm{i}},m,n}^{(j)} and ar,n(j)a_{{\rm{r}},n}^{(j)}. Therefore, for each reflecting element NN, the cascaded channel air,m,n(j)a_{{\rm{ir}},m,n}^{(j)} has zero mean and independent in-phase and quadrature-phase components each with variance 12ai,m,n(j)ar,n(j)\frac{1}{2}a_{{\rm{i}},m,n}^{(j)}a_{{\rm{r}},n}^{(j)}. According to the CLT, for a practically large N, we can approximate both the in-phase and quadrature-phase of air,m(j)=n=1Nair,m,n(j)a_{{\rm{ir}},m}^{(j)}=\sum_{n=1}^{N}a_{{\rm{ir}},m,n}^{(j)} by Gaussian distribution 𝒩(0,12Nai,m(j)ar(j))\mathcal{N}(0,\frac{1}{2}Na_{{\rm{i}},m}^{(j)}a_{\rm{r}}^{(j)}). As a result, we use the following CSCG distribution to approximate the BS mm-IRS jj-UE 0 channel, given by

air,m(j)approx.𝒞𝒩(0,Ngi,m(j)gr(j)).\small a_{{\rm{ir}},m}^{(j)}\overset{\text{approx.}}{\sim}\mathcal{CN}\left(0,Ng_{{\rm{i}},m}^{(j)}g_{\rm{r}}^{(j)}\right). (12)

Thus, the average channel power of BS mm-IRS jj-UE 0 link can be derived by

gir,m(j)𝔼{|air,m(j)|2}=Ngi,m(j)gr(j).\small g_{{\rm{ir}},m}^{(j)}\triangleq\mathbb{E}\left\{|a_{{\rm{ir}},m}^{(j)}|^{2}\right\}=Ng_{{\rm{i}},m}^{(j)}g_{\rm{r}}^{(j)}. (13)

II-D2 UL Stage

In the UL stage, IoT devices that harvest sufficient energy transmit packets to their serving BSs with the help of IRSs. With regards to the tagged BS 0, considering the link UE kk-IRS jj-BS 0 in (4), the reflected channel via element nn can be derived by

bir,k,n(j)bi,k,n(j)br,n(j)eiφnj=|bi,k,n(j)||br,n(j)|ei(φn(j)+bi,k,n(j)+br,n(j)),\displaystyle\small b_{{\rm{ir}},k,n}^{(j)}\triangleq b_{{\rm{i}},k,n}^{(j)}b_{{\rm{r}},n}^{(j)}e^{\boldsymbol{\text{i}}\varphi_{n}^{j}}=|b_{{\rm{i}},k,n}^{(j)}||b_{{\rm{r}},n}^{(j)}|e^{\boldsymbol{\text{i}}\left(\varphi_{n}^{(j)}+\angle b_{{\rm{i}},k,n}^{(j)}+\angle b_{{\rm{r}},n}^{(j)}\right)}, (14)

where the channel amplitude |bir,k,n(j)||bi,k,n(j)||ar,n(j)||b_{{\rm{ir}},k,n}^{(j)}|\triangleq|b_{{\rm{i}},k,n}^{(j)}||a_{{\rm{r}},n}^{(j)}|, and the cascade channel phase bir,k,n(j)φn(j)+bi,k,n(j)+br,n(j)\angle b_{{\rm{ir}},k,n}^{(j)}\triangleq\varphi_{n}^{(j)}+\angle b_{{\rm{i}},k,n}^{(j)}+\angle b_{{\rm{r}},n}^{(j)}. What’s more, the amplitudes |bi,k,n(j)||b_{{\rm{i}},k,n}^{(j)}| and |br,n(j)||b_{{\rm{r}},n}^{(j)}| follow the Rayleigh distribution with the scale parameters being fi,k(j)f_{{\rm{i}},k}^{(j)} and fr(j)f_{r}^{(j)}, respectively. Similarly, the amplitude of the UE 0-IRS 0-BS 0 channel is derived as

|bir,0(0)|=|𝒃i,0(0)||𝒃r(0)|=n=1N|bi,0,n(0)||br,n(0)|,\small|b_{{\rm{ir}},0}^{(0)}|=|\boldsymbol{b}_{{\rm{i}},0}^{(0)}|^{\intercal}|\boldsymbol{b}_{\rm{r}}^{(0)}|=\sum_{n=1}^{N}{|b_{{\rm{i}},0,n}^{(0)}||b_{{\rm{r}},n}^{(0)}|}, (15)

which for large NN is approximated as Gaussian distribution.

|bir,0(0)|approx.𝒩(Nπ4fi,0(0)fr(0),N(1π216)fi,0(0)fr(0)).\small|b_{{\rm{ir}},0}^{(0)}|\overset{\text{approx.}}{\sim}\mathcal{N}\left(N\frac{\pi}{4}\sqrt{f_{{\rm{i}},0}^{(0)}f_{\rm{r}}^{(0)}},N\left(1-\frac{\pi^{2}}{16}\right)f_{{\rm{i}},0}^{(0)}f_{\rm{r}}^{(0)}\right). (16)

For a sufficiently large NN, we can use the CSCG distribution to approximate the UE kk-IRS jj-BS 0 channel, which is obtained by

bir,k(j)=n=1Nbir,k,n(j)dist.𝒞𝒩(0,Nfi,k(j)fr(j)).\small b_{{\rm{ir}},k}^{(j)}=\sum_{n=1}^{N}{b_{{\rm{ir}},k,n}^{(j)}}\overset{\text{dist.}}{\sim}\mathcal{CN}\left(0,Nf_{{\rm{i}},k}^{(j)}f_{\rm{r}}^{(j)}\right). (17)

Therefore, the UE 0-IRS 0-BS 0 and UE kk-IRS jj-BS 0 average channel power are, respectively, given by

fir,0(0)𝔼{|bir,0(0)|2}=Gscfi,0(0)fr(0),fir,k(j)𝔼{|bir,k(j)|2}=Nfi,k(j)fr(j).\small f_{{\rm{ir}},0}^{(0)}\triangleq\mathbb{E}\left\{|b_{{\rm{ir}},0}^{(0)}|^{2}\right\}=G_{\rm{sc}}f_{{\rm{i}},0}^{(0)}f_{\rm{r}}^{(0)},\quad f_{{\rm{ir}},k}^{(j)}\triangleq\mathbb{E}\left\{|b_{{\rm{ir}},k}^{(j)}|^{2}\right\}=Nf_{{\rm{i}},k}^{(j)}f_{\rm{r}}^{(j)}. (18)

where Gsc[π216N2+(1π216)N]G_{\rm{sc}}\triangleq[\frac{\pi^{2}}{16}N^{2}+(1-\frac{\pi^{2}}{16})N] denotes the beamforming coefficient of fi,0(0)fr(0)f_{{\rm{i}},0}^{(0)}f_{\rm{r}}^{(0)}, growing with NN in the order of O(N2)O(N^{2}).

II-E Performance Metrics

In this subsection, we detail the performance metrics considered in this work. To be specific, we consider the following metrics: energy coverage probability in the charging stage, UL coverage probability during the UL stage, overall coverage probability and network spatial throughput.

II-E1 Energy Coverage Probability

Define PtP_{\rm{t}} as the BS transmit power. Under the condition that UE 0 is associated with the nearest BS 0, the amount of energy harvested from BS 0 is composed of the following three parts: from the direct transmission of BS 0, from the reflected transmission through IRS 0 performing beamforming, and from the reflected transmission through other IRSs ȷ\in\jmath performing random scattering. Specifically, the harvested signal power from BS 0 is obtained by

SdrPt|ad,0+jȷair,0(j)|2.\small S_{\rm{dr}}\triangleq P_{\rm{t}}\cdot|a_{{\rm{d}},0}+\sum_{j\in\jmath}{a_{{\rm{ir}},0}^{(j)}}|^{2}. (19)

Similarly, the amount of harvested signal power from BS mΛB\{0}m\in\Lambda_{\rm{B}}\backslash\left\{0\right\} consists of the following two parts: from the direct transmission of BS mm, and from the reflected transmission through all IRSs ȷ\in\jmath performing random scattering. To be specific, the harvested signal power from BS mm can be derived as

SidPtmΛB\{0}|ad,m+jȷair,m(j)|2.\small S_{\rm{id}}\triangleq P_{\rm{t}}\cdot\sum_{m\in\Lambda_{\rm{B}}\backslash\left\{0\right\}}{|a_{{\rm{d}},m}+\sum_{j\in\jmath}{a_{{\rm{ir}},m}^{(j)}}|^{2}}. (20)

In summary, the overall amount of harvested energy at UE 0 is given by

Eh=τTη(Sdr+Sid)Joules,\small E_{h}=\tau T\eta\left(S_{\rm{dr}}+S_{\rm{id}}\right)\quad\rm{Joules}, (21)

where η<1\eta<1 indicates the RF energy conversion efficiency. To simplify the analysis, we adopt the linear energy-harvesting model as in [7] and assume that the input power to the circuit of receiver belongs to the low power regime without saturation of EH. Note that our work can be extended to the non-linear EH models by considering the saturation regime. To show the effectiveness of EH, we define the energy coverage probability during the charging stage, which is given by

en=𝔼[𝕀(EhEmin)],\small\mathbb{P}_{\rm{en}}=\mathbb{E}\left[\mathbb{I}\left(E_{\rm{h}}\geqslant E_{\rm{min}}\right)\right], (22)

where Emin=(1τ)Tρ(x02+HB2)ϵα/2E_{\rm{min}}=(1-\tau)T\rho(x_{0}^{2}+H_{\text{B}}^{2})^{\epsilon\alpha/2} in (1) with 𝕀()\mathbb{I}(\cdot) being the indicator function.

II-E2 UL Coverage Probability

According to the UL fractional power control strategy, the transmit power of UE 0 and UE kΛu\{0}k\in\Lambda_{\rm{u}}^{\prime}\backslash\left\{0\right\} is, respectively, given by P0=ρ(x02+HB2)ϵα/2P_{0}=\rho(x_{0}^{2}+H_{\text{B}}^{2})^{\epsilon\alpha/2} and Pk=ρ(Dk2+HB2)ϵα/2P_{k}=\rho(D_{k}^{2}+H_{\text{B}}^{2})^{\epsilon\alpha/2}. The desired signal received at the tagged BS 0 is composed of direct signal from UE 0 and the reflected signal of UE 0 via all IRSs ȷ\in\jmath (i.e., performing beamforming and random scattering). Therefore, we derive received signal power by

SULρ(x02+HB2)ϵα2|bd,0+jȷbir,0(j)|2.\small S_{\rm{UL}}\triangleq\rho(x_{0}^{2}+H_{\rm{B}}^{2})^{\frac{\epsilon\alpha}{2}}\cdot|b_{{\rm{d}},0}+\sum_{j\in\jmath}{b_{{\rm{ir}},0}^{(j)}}|^{2}. (23)

After the charging stage, the active IoT devices that are harvesting sufficient energy and transmitting on the same time-frequency resource block with UE 0 can be approximated to follow a PPPΛu{\rm{PPP}}\sim\Lambda_{\rm{u}}^{{}^{\prime}} of density λu=enλB\lambda_{\rm{u}}^{{}^{\prime}}=\mathbb{P}_{\rm{en}}\lambda_{\rm{B}} with en=𝔼[𝕀(EhEmin)]\mathbb{P}_{\rm{en}}=\mathbb{E}\left[\mathbb{I}\left(E_{\rm{h}}\geqslant E_{\rm{min}}\right)\right] given by (22). Therefore, the overall interference received by BS 0 is given by

IkΛu\{0}Ik=kΛu\{0}ρ(Dk2+HB2)ϵα2|bd,k+jȷbir,k(j)|2.\small I\triangleq\sum_{k\in\Lambda_{\rm{u}}^{\prime}\backslash\left\{0\right\}}{I_{k}}=\sum_{k\in\Lambda_{\rm{u}}^{\prime}\backslash\left\{0\right\}}{\rho(D_{k}^{2}+H_{\rm{B}}^{2})^{\frac{\epsilon\alpha}{2}}|b_{{\rm{d}},k}+\sum_{j\in\jmath}{b_{{\rm{ir}},k}^{(j)}}|^{2}}. (24)

The received SINR at BS 0 is given by

γSULI+σ2=ρ(x02+HB2)ϵα2|bd,0+jȷbir,0(j)|2kΛu\{0}ρ(Dk2+HB2)ϵα2|bd,k+jȷbir,k(j)|2+σ2.\displaystyle\small{\gamma}\triangleq\frac{S_{\rm{UL}}}{I+\sigma^{2}}=\frac{\rho(x_{0}^{2}+H_{\rm{B}}^{2})^{\frac{\epsilon\alpha}{2}}\cdot|b_{{\rm{d}},0}+\sum_{j\in\jmath}{b_{{\rm{ir}},0}^{(j)}}|^{2}}{\sum_{k\in\Lambda_{\rm{u}}^{\prime}\backslash\left\{0\right\}}{\rho(D_{k}^{2}+H_{\rm{B}}^{2})^{\frac{\epsilon\alpha}{2}}|b_{{\rm{d}},k}+\sum_{j\in\jmath}{b_{{\rm{ir}},k}^{(j)}}|^{2}}+\sigma^{2}}. (25)

The UL coverage probability is actually a conditional coverage probability under the condition that the typical UE 0 has harvested sufficient energy is given by

UL{γγ¯|EhEmin},\small\mathbb{P}_{\rm{UL}}\triangleq\mathbb{P}\left\{{\gamma}\geq{\overline{\gamma}}\lvert E_{\rm{h}}\geq E_{\rm{min}}\right\}, (26)

where γ¯\overline{\gamma} is the SINR threshold.

II-E3 Overall Coverage Probability

By definition, the overall coverage probability is defined as the joint probability of the aforementioned two events, which can be expressed by

cov𝔼[𝕀(EhEmin)𝕀(γγ¯)].\small\mathbb{P}_{\rm{cov}}\triangleq\mathbb{E}\left[\mathbb{I}\left(E_{\rm{h}}\geq E_{\rm{min}}\right)\mathbb{I}\left({\gamma}\geq{\overline{\gamma}}\right)\right]. (27)

II-E4 Spatial Throughput

Based on the overall coverage probability, the average spatial throughput can be obtained as

ν=(1τ)λu𝔼[log(1+γ¯)𝕀(EhEmin)×𝕀(γγ¯)]=(1τ)enλulog(1+γ¯)cov,\displaystyle\nu=(1-\tau)\lambda_{\rm{u}}^{\prime}\mathbb{E}\left[\log\left(1+\overline{\gamma}\right)\mathbb{I}\left(E_{\rm{h}}\geq E_{\rm{min}}\right)\times\mathbb{I}\left(\gamma\geq\overline{\gamma}\right)\right]=(1-\tau)\mathbb{P}_{\rm{en}}\lambda_{\rm{u}}\log\left(1+\overline{\gamma}\right)\mathbb{P}_{\rm{cov}}, (28)

where en\mathbb{P}_{\rm{en}} and cov\mathbb{P}_{\rm{cov}} are given by (22) and (27), the expressions of which will be derived in the following section.

II-E5 Power Efficiency

We consider the following two performance metrics to illustrate the power efficiency: energy harvesting efficiency (EHE) [33] in the charging stage and energy efficiency (EE) [34] in the UL stage, where the former is defined as the amount of power scavenged by all the IoT devices per unit power consumed by the BS, while the latter refers to the number of bits transmitted by an IoT device per Joule. The EHE can be expressed as

=𝔼{Eh}λuτTλB(Pcb+1ηbPt),\small\mathscr{EHE}=\frac{\mathbb{E}\{E_{\text{h}}\}\lambda_{\rm{u}}}{\tau T\lambda_{\text{B}}(P_{\text{cb}}+\frac{1}{\eta_{\text{b}}}P_{\text{t}})}, (29)

where 𝔼{Eh}\mathbb{E}\{E_{h}\} is the average amount of energy harvested by the typical UE 0 during the charging stage, ηb(0,1]\eta_{\text{b}}\in\left(0,1\right] represents the efficiency of the power amplifier efficiency of a BS, PcbP_{\text{cb}} and PtP_{\text{t}} denote the static power and transmit power of a BS, respectively. The EE of the typical UE 0 can be expressed as

=(1τ)Tlog(1+γ¯)cov(Pcu+1ηu𝔼{P0})(1τ)T,\small\mathscr{EE}=\frac{(1-\tau)T\log\left(1+\overline{\gamma}\right)\mathbb{P}_{\rm{cov}}}{(P_{\text{cu}}+{\frac{1}{\eta_{\text{u}}}\mathbb{E}\{P_{\text{0}}\}})(1-\tau)T}, (30)

where the numerator denotes the number of bits transmitted within the UL stage, and the denominator represents the average energy consumption of the typical UE 0 with 𝔼{P0}\mathbb{E}\{P_{0}\} being the transmit power, ηu(0,1]\eta_{\text{u}}\in\left(0,1\right] being the efficiency of the power amplifier efficiency of an IoT device, and PcuP_{\text{cu}} being the static power of typical UE 0, respectively.

III PERFORMANCE ANALYSIS

In this section, we first study the signal power distribution in both stages, and then characterize the interference distribution in the UL stage. The aforementioned performance metrics are finally obtained.

III-A Signal Power Distribution

The signal power distribution is related to not only the charging stage, but also the UL stage. To be specific, in the charging stage, all BSs broadcast energy signals which are harvested by IoT devices. While in the UL stage, for BS 0, only that originated from UE 0 is the desired signal.
In the charging stage, the energy harvested from BSs is contributed from both the direct signal and the reflected signals via all IRSs within set ȷ\jmath. In the following, we first derive the signal power distribution from BS 0 conditioned on x0x_{0} and d0d_{0}. The overall conditional signal can be expressed as ad,0+jȷair,0(j)a_{{\rm{d}},0}+\sum_{j\in\jmath}a_{{\rm{ir}},0}^{(j)}, the summation of a RV of Rayleigh distribution and N RVs of Gaussian distribution. Because of the difficulty in deriving the exact signal power distribution from BS 0, we use the Gamma distribution [35] as an alternative. Specifically, we use Gamma distribution to approximate the distribution of SdrS_{\rm{dr}}, given by

Sdr|d0,x0approx.Γ[kdr,θdr],\small S_{\rm{dr}}|_{d_{0},x_{0}}\overset{\text{approx.}}{\sim}\Gamma[k_{\rm{dr}},\theta_{\rm{dr}}], (31)

where kdrk_{\rm{dr}} and θdr\theta_{\rm{dr}} represent the shape parameter and scale parameter, respectively. With the moment matching technique [36], we have

kdr(𝔼{Sdr}|d0,x0)2var{Sdr}|d0,x0,θdrvar{Sdr}|d0,x0𝔼{Sdr}|d0,x0.\small k_{\rm{dr}}\triangleq\frac{(\mathbb{E}\{S_{\rm{dr}}\}|_{d_{0},x_{0}})^{2}}{{\rm{var}}\{S_{\rm{dr}}\}|_{d_{0},x_{0}}},\quad\theta_{\rm{dr}}\triangleq\frac{{\rm{var}}\{S_{\rm{dr}}\}|_{d_{0},x_{0}}}{\mathbb{E}\{S_{\rm{dr}}\}|_{d_{0},x_{0}}}. (32)

To obtain kdrk_{\rm{dr}} and θdr\theta_{\rm{dr}}, we derive the first and second moments of SdrS_{\rm{dr}} conditioned on d0d_{0} and x0x_{0}.

𝔼{Sdr}|d0,x0Pt(𝔼{|a1|2}|d0,x0+𝔼{|a2|2}|d0,x0),\displaystyle\mathbb{E}\left\{S_{\rm{dr}}\right\}|_{d_{0},x_{0}}\approx P_{\text{t}}\cdot(\mathbb{E}\left\{|a_{1}|^{2}\right\}|_{d_{0},x_{0}}+\mathbb{E}\left\{|a_{2}|^{2}\right\}|_{d_{0},x_{0}}), (33)
𝔼{Sdr2}|d0,x0=Pt(𝔼{|a1|4}|d0,x0+𝔼{|a2|4}|d0,x0+4𝔼{|a1|2}|d0,x0𝔼{|a2|2}|d0,x0).\displaystyle\mathbb{E}\left\{S_{\rm{dr}}^{2}\right\}|_{d_{0},x_{0}}=P_{\text{t}}\cdot(\mathbb{E}\{|a_{1}|^{4}\}|_{d_{0},x_{0}}+\mathbb{E}\{|a_{2}|^{4}\}|_{d_{0},x_{0}}+4\mathbb{E}\{|a_{1}|^{2}\}|_{d_{0},x_{0}}\mathbb{E}\{|a_{2}|^{2}\}|_{d_{0},x_{0}}). (34)

The first two moments of Sdr|d0,x0S_{\rm{dr}}|_{d_{0},x_{0}} can be derived by the first two moments of a1a_{1}, a2a_{2}, |a1|2|a_{1}|^{2}, |a2|2|a_{2}|^{2}. With the similar method proposed in Appendix B of [18] and the approximation of r0,jx0r_{0,j}\approx x_{0}, gi,0(j)gd,0g_{{\rm{i}},0}^{(j)}\approx g_{{\rm{d}},0} for jȷj\in\jmath, the first two moments of a1a_{1}, a2a_{2}, |a1|2|a_{1}|^{2}, |a2|2|a_{2}|^{2} can be derived by

𝔼{a1}|d0,x0=0,𝔼{a12}|d0,x0=0,𝔼{a2}|d0,x0=0,𝔼{a22}|d0,x0=0,\small\mathbb{E}\{a_{1}\}|_{d_{0},x_{0}}=0,\quad\mathbb{E}\{a_{1}^{2}\}|_{d_{0},x_{0}}=0,\quad\mathbb{E}\{a_{2}\}|_{d_{0},x_{0}}=0,\quad\mathbb{E}\{a_{2}^{2}\}|_{d_{0},x_{0}}=0, (35)
𝔼{|a1|2}|d0,x0gd,0(1+Gscgr(0)+Nπ4πgr(0)),\small\mathbb{E}\{|a_{1}|^{2}\}|_{d_{0},x_{0}}\approx g_{{\rm{d}},0}(1+G_{\rm{sc}}g_{\text{r}}^{(0)}+N\frac{\pi}{4}\sqrt{\pi g_{\text{r}}^{(0)}}), (36)
𝔼{|a1|4}|d0,x0\displaystyle\mathbb{E}\{|a_{1}|^{4}\}|_{d_{0},x_{0}} [gd,0]2[2+34π32Ngr(0)+6Gscgr(0)+2π(π3N364+3πN2(1π216)4)\displaystyle\approx\left[g_{{\rm{d}},0}\right]^{2}\left[2+\frac{3}{4}\pi^{\frac{3}{2}}N\sqrt{g_{\text{r}}^{(0)}}+6G_{\rm{sc}}g_{\text{r}}^{(0)}+2\sqrt{\pi}\left(\frac{\pi^{3}N^{3}}{64}+\frac{3\pi N^{2}(1-\frac{\pi^{2}}{16})}{4}\right)\right. (37)
×[gr(0)]32+(π4N4256+3π2N3(1π216)8+3N2(1π216)2)[gr(0)]2],\displaystyle\left.\times\left[g_{\text{r}}^{(0)}\right]^{\frac{3}{2}}+\left(\frac{\pi^{4}N^{4}}{256}+\frac{3\pi^{2}N^{3}(1-\frac{\pi^{2}}{16})}{8}+3N^{2}(1-\frac{\pi^{2}}{16})^{2}\right)\left[g_{\text{r}}^{(0)}\right]^{2}\right],
𝔼{|a2|2}|d0,x0Ngd,0ES1(d0),𝔼{|a2|4}|d0,x02N2[gd,0]2ES3(d0),\small\mathbb{E}\{|a_{2}|^{2}\}|_{d_{0},x_{0}}\approx Ng_{{\rm{d}},0}E_{\rm{S1}}(d_{0}),\quad\mathbb{E}\{|a_{2}|^{4}\}|_{d_{0},x_{0}}\approx 2N^{2}[g_{{\rm{d}},0}]^{2}E_{\rm{S3}}(d_{0}), (38)

where gd,0g_{\rm{d,0}} and gr(0)g_{\rm{r}}^{(0)} denote the average channel power gain of the BS 0-UE 0 and IRS 0-UE 0 link, i.e.,

gd,0β(x02+HB2)α/2,gr(0)β(d02+HI2)α/2,\small g_{\rm{d,0}}\triangleq\beta\left(x_{0}^{2}+H_{\rm{B}}^{2}\right)^{-\alpha/2},\quad g_{\rm{r}}^{(0)}\triangleq\beta\left(d_{0}^{2}+H_{\rm{I}}^{2}\right)^{-\alpha/2}, (39)

and ES1E_{\rm{S1}} denotes the expectation of jȷ\{0}gr(j)\sum_{j\in\jmath\backslash\{0\}}g_{r}^{(j)} which is given by

ES1(d0)=2πλIβα2[(d02+HI2)1α2(D2+HI2)1α2],\displaystyle E_{\rm{S1}}(d_{0})=\frac{2\pi\lambda_{\rm{I}}\beta}{\alpha-2}\left[\left(d_{0}^{2}+H_{\rm{I}}^{2}\right)^{1-\frac{\alpha}{2}}-\left(D^{2}+H_{\rm{I}}^{2}\right)^{1-\frac{\alpha}{2}}\right], (40)

and

ES3𝔼{(d0<djDgr(dj))2}=(ES1(d0))2+ES2(d0),\displaystyle E_{\rm{S3}}\triangleq\mathbb{E}\left\{\left(\sum_{d_{0}<d_{j}\leq D}{g_{\rm{r}}(d_{j})}\right)^{2}\right\}=(E_{\rm{S1}}(d_{0}))^{2}+E_{\rm{S2}}(d_{0}), (41)

with ES2(d0)E_{\rm{S2}}\left(d_{0}\right) given by

ES2(d0)=πλIβ2α1[(d02+HI2)1α(D2+HI2)1α].\displaystyle E_{\rm{S2}}\left(d_{0}\right)=\frac{\pi\lambda_{\rm{I}}\beta^{2}}{\alpha-1}\left[(d_{0}^{2}+H_{\rm{I}}^{2})^{1-\alpha}-(D^{2}+H_{\rm{I}}^{2})^{1-\alpha}\right]. (42)

Therefore, we can derive the first and second moments of SdrS_{\rm{dr}} conditioned on d0d_{0} and x0x_{0}. The variance is derived by var{Sdr}|d0,x0E{Sdr2}|d0,x0(E{Sdr}|d0,x0)2{\rm{var}}\left\{S_{\rm{dr}}\right\}|_{d_{0},x_{0}}\triangleq E\left\{S_{\rm{dr}}^{2}\right\}|_{d_{0},x_{0}}-\left(E\left\{S_{\rm{dr}}\right\}|_{d_{0},x_{0}}\right)^{2}. By substituting the above expressions into (32), we derive the shape parameter kdrk_{\rm{dr}} and θdr\theta_{\rm{dr}}, respectively.
Based on (33), (36) and (38), the conditional mean signal power is the product of gd,0g_{{\rm{d}},0} and κdr(d0)1+Gscgr(0)+Nπ4πgr(0)+NES1(d0)\kappa_{\rm{dr}}(d_{0})\triangleq 1+G_{\rm{sc}}g_{\text{r}}^{(0)}+N\frac{\pi}{4}\sqrt{\pi g_{\text{r}}^{(0)}}+NE_{\rm{S1}}(d_{0}) which depends on the locations of BS 0 and IRS 0. The dominant term in κdr(d0)\kappa_{\rm{dr}}(d_{0}) is Gscgr(0)G_{\rm{sc}}g_{\text{r}}^{(0)} which scales in O(N2)O(N^{2}) or O(d0α2)O(d_{0}^{-\frac{\alpha}{2}}) when d0d_{0} is sufficiently small. For the large d0d_{0}, the IRS power gain is given by Gscgr(0)1G_{\rm{sc}}g_{\text{r}}^{(0)}\leq 1 and hence κdr(d0)1\kappa_{\rm{dr}}(d_{0})\approx 1. It reveals that when UE 0 is closer to IRS 0, IRS 0 provides more power gain.
Then we derive the harvested signal power originated from all BSs mΛB{0}m\in\Lambda_{\rm{B}}\setminus\left\{0\right\} and reflected by IRSs jȷj\in\jmath, which is given by

S¯idmΛB\{0}S¯id(m)=Pt[(mΛB\{0}gd,m)+Njȷ(gr(j)mΛB\{0}gi,m(j))].\displaystyle\overline{S}_{\rm{id}}\triangleq\sum_{m\in\Lambda_{\rm{B}}\backslash\left\{0\right\}}\overline{S}_{\rm{id}}^{\left(m\right)}=P_{\rm{t}}\left[\left(\sum_{m\in\Lambda_{\rm{B}}\backslash\left\{0\right\}}g_{{\rm{d}},m}\right)+N\sum_{j\in\jmath}\left(g_{\rm{r}}^{\left(j\right)}\sum_{m\in\Lambda_{\rm{B}}\backslash\left\{0\right\}}g_{{\rm{i}},m}^{\left(j\right)}\right)\right]. (43)

We consider the following approximation gi,m(j)gd,mg_{{\rm{i}},m}^{\left(j\right)}\approx g_{{\rm{d}},m} for jȷj\in\jmath, and thus, we have S¯id(m)υSgd,m\overline{S}_{\rm{id}}^{\left(m\right)}\approx\upsilon_{\rm{S}}g_{{\rm{d}},m} and hence

S¯idPtυSmΛB\{0}gd,m,\small\overline{S}_{\rm{id}}\approx P_{\rm{t}}\upsilon_{\rm{S}}\sum_{m\in\Lambda_{\rm{B}}\backslash\left\{0\right\}}g_{{\rm{d}},m}, (44)

where υS1+Njȷgr(j)\upsilon_{\rm{S}}\triangleq 1+N\sum_{j\in\jmath}g_{\rm{r}}^{(j)} represents the relative power gain of reflecting or scattering paths originated from IRSs in ȷ\jmath over the direct path.
To characterize the distribution of the signal power SidS_{\rm{id}} originated directly from other BSs and reflected via all IRSs, we first derive the Laplace transform Sid|d0,x0(s)\mathcal{L}_{S_{\rm{id}}|_{d_{0},x_{0}}}\left(s\right) in Lemma 1, in which the instantaneous signal power SidS_{\rm{id}} can be approximated by

SidPtυSmΛB\{0}gd,mωm.\small S_{\rm{id}}\approx P_{\rm{t}}\upsilon_{\rm{S}}\sum_{m\in\Lambda_{\rm{B}}\backslash\left\{0\right\}}g_{{\rm{d}},m}\omega_{m}.\vspace{-0.5em} (45)

According to (45), conditioned on x0x_{0}, 𝔼{Sid}\mathbb{E}\{S_{\text{id}}\} is given by

𝔼{Sid}|x0\displaystyle\mathbb{E}\{S_{\text{id}}\}|_{x_{0}} Pt𝔼{ωm}𝔼{υS}𝔼{mΛB\{0}gd,m}|x0\displaystyle\approx P_{\text{t}}\mathbb{E}\{\omega_{m}\}\mathbb{E}\{\upsilon_{\rm{S}}\}\mathbb{E}\left\{\sum_{m\in\Lambda_{\rm{B}}\backslash\left\{0\right\}}g_{{\rm{d}},m}\right\}\Bigg{|}_{x_{0}} (46)
=(a)Pt(1+NES1(0))2πλBx=x0gd(x)xdx=2πλBβ(1+NES1(0))Pt(α2)(x02+HB2)α21\displaystyle\overset{(a)}{=}P_{\text{t}}(1+NE_{S1}(0))2\pi\lambda_{\rm{B}}\int_{x=x_{0}}^{\infty}{g_{d}(x)x\text{d}x}=\frac{2\pi\lambda_{\rm{B}}\beta(1+NE_{S1}(0))P_{\text{t}}}{(\alpha-2)(x_{0}^{2}+H_{\text{B}}^{2})^{\frac{\alpha}{2}-1}}

Note that (a) is due to the HPPP-distributed BSs locations and 𝔼{υS}=NES1(0)\mathbb{E}\{\upsilon_{S}\}=NE_{S1}(0) based on (40). 𝐋𝐞𝐦𝐦𝐚 1.\mathbf{Lemma\;1.} Conditioned on d0d_{0} and x0x_{0}, the Laplace transform of SidS_{\rm{id}} is given by

Sid|d0,x0(s)𝔼{esSid}|d0,x0exp(2πΛBU(sPtυS)),\small\mathcal{L}_{S_{\rm{id}}|_{d_{0},x_{0}}}\left(s\right)\triangleq\mathbb{E}\left\{e^{-sS_{\rm{id}}}\right\}|_{d_{0},x_{0}}\approx\exp\left(-2\pi\Lambda_{\rm{B}}U\left(sP_{\rm{t}}\upsilon_{\rm{S}}\right)\right),\vspace{-0.5em} (47)

where the function U()U\left(\cdot\right) is defined as

U(x)\displaystyle U(x) παsin(2πα)(βx)2αx02+HB222F1(1,2α,1+2α,1gd,0x),\displaystyle\triangleq\frac{\pi}{\alpha\sin(\frac{2\pi}{\alpha})}\left(\beta x\right)^{\frac{2}{\alpha}}-\frac{x_{0}^{2}+H_{\rm{B}}^{2}}{2}\centerdot_{2}F_{1}\left(1,\frac{2}{\alpha},1+\frac{2}{\alpha},-\frac{1}{g_{{\rm{d}},0}x}\right), (48)

with gd,0=gd(x)|x=x0g_{{\rm{d}},0}=g_{\rm{d}}\left(x\right)|_{x=x_{0}} and F12{}_{2}F_{1} being the Gauss hypergeometric function [37].
Proof:\emph{Proof}: The results can be proved by a minor modification of Proposition 4 in [18]. We omit the full proof due to the space limitation.                         
Thus, the cumulative distribution function (CDF) of Sid|d0,x0S_{\rm{id}}|_{d_{0},x_{0}} can be derived via the inverse Laplace transform of (47), i.e.,

FSid|d0,x0(x)=1[1sSid|d0,x0(s)](x),\small F_{S_{\rm{id}}|_{d_{0},x_{0}}}\left(x\right)=\mathcal{L}^{-1}\left[\frac{1}{s}\mathcal{L}_{S_{\rm{id}}|_{d_{0},x_{0}}}\left(s\right)\right]\left(x\right), (49)

which can be computed directly in standard computing software, such as Wolfram Mathematica.
We then study the UL signal power distribution in the UL stage. Similar to the charging stage, we still use Gamma distribution to approximate the conditional distribution SULS_{\rm{UL}} which is given by

SUL|d0,x0approx.Γ[kUL,θUL].\small S_{\rm{UL}}|_{d_{0},x_{0}}\overset{\text{approx.}}{\sim}\Gamma[k_{\rm{UL}},\theta_{\rm{UL}}]. (50)

With the moment matching technique [36], we have

kUL(𝔼{SUL}|d0,x0)2var{SUL}|d0,x0,θULvar{SUL}|d0,x0𝔼{SUL}|d0,x0.\small k_{\rm{UL}}\triangleq\frac{(\mathbb{E}\{S_{\rm{UL}}\}|_{d_{0},x_{0}})^{2}}{\rm{var}\{S_{\rm{UL}}\}|_{d_{0},x_{0}}},\quad\theta_{\rm{UL}}\triangleq\frac{\rm{var}\{S_{\rm{UL}}\}|_{d_{0},x_{0}}}{\mathbb{E}\{S_{\rm{UL}}\}|_{d_{0},x_{0}}}. (51)

To obtain kULk_{\rm{UL}} and θUL\theta_{\rm{UL}}, we derive the first and second moments of SULS_{\rm{UL}} conditioned on d0d_{0} and x0x_{0}.

𝔼{SUL}|d0,x0P0(𝔼{|b1|2}|d0,x0+𝔼{|b2|2}|d0,x0),\displaystyle\mathbb{E}\left\{S_{\rm{UL}}\right\}|_{d_{0},x_{0}}\approx P_{0}\cdot(\mathbb{E}\left\{|b_{1}|^{2}\right\}|_{d_{0},x_{0}}+\mathbb{E}\left\{|b_{2}|^{2}\right\}|_{d_{0},x_{0}}), (52)
𝔼{SUL2}|d0,x0=P0(𝔼{|b1|4}|d0,x0+𝔼{|b2|4}|d0,x0+4𝔼{|b1|2}|d0,x0𝔼{|b2|2}|d0,x0).\displaystyle\mathbb{E}\left\{S_{\rm{UL}}^{2}\right\}|_{d_{0},x_{0}}=P_{0}\cdot(\mathbb{E}\{|b_{1}|^{4}\}|_{d_{0},x_{0}}+\mathbb{E}\{|b_{2}|^{4}\}|_{d_{0},x_{0}}+4\mathbb{E}\{|b_{1}|^{2}\}|_{d_{0},x_{0}}\mathbb{E}\{|b_{2}|^{2}\}|_{d_{0},x_{0}}). (53)

The first two moments of SUL|d0,x0S_{\rm{UL}}|_{d_{0},x_{0}} are determined by the first two moments of b1b_{1}, b2b_{2}, |b1|2|b_{1}|^{2} and |b2|2|b_{2}|^{2}. Following the similar approach to derive the first and second moment of Sdr|d0,x0S_{\rm{dr}}|_{d_{0},x_{0}} and the approximation of r0,jx0r_{0,j}\approx x_{0}, fr(j)fd,0f_{r}^{\left(j\right)}\approx f_{{\rm{d}},0} for jȷj\in\jmath, we can obtain the first two moments of b1b_{1}, b2b_{2}, |b1|2|b_{1}|^{2}, |b2|2|b_{2}|^{2} by replacing a1a_{1}, a2a_{2}, gd,0g_{{\rm{d}},0} and gr(0)g_{\rm{r}}^{(0)} in (35)–(38) with b1b_{1}, b2b_{2}, fd,0f_{\text{d,0}} and fi,0(0)f_{\text{i,0}}^{(0)}.
Finally, by integrating 𝔼{SUL}|d0,x0\mathbb{E}\left\{S_{\rm{UL}}\right\}|_{d_{0},x_{0}} over d0d_{0} and x0x_{0}, we obtain 𝔼{SUL}\mathbb{E}\left\{S_{\rm{UL}}\right\} by

𝔼{SUL}=00D𝔼{SUL}|d0,x0fd0(d0)fx0(x0)dd0dx0,\small\mathbb{E}\left\{S_{\rm{UL}}\right\}=\int_{0}^{\infty}\int_{0}^{D}{\mathbb{E}\left\{S_{\rm{UL}}\right\}|_{d_{0},x_{0}}f_{d_{0}}(d_{0})f_{x_{0}}(x_{0}){\rm d}d_{0}{\rm d}x_{0}}, (54)

where fd0(d0)f_{d_{0}}(d_{0}) and fx0(x0)f_{x_{0}}(x_{0}), denote the probability density functions (PDFs) of d0d_{0} and x0x_{0},

fd0(d)2πλIdeλIπd2,fx0(x)2πλBxeλBπx2.\small f_{d_{0}}(d)\triangleq 2\pi\lambda_{\rm{I}}de^{-\lambda_{\rm{I}}\pi d^{2}},\quad f_{x_{0}}(x)\triangleq 2\pi\lambda_{\rm{B}}xe^{-\lambda_{\rm{B}}\pi x^{2}}. (55)

III-B Interference Power Distribution

We derive the interference power distribution in the UL stage in this subsection. Specifically, the interference is from active users transmitting information in the same time-frequency resource block.
Referring to (17), the UE kk-IRS jj-BS 0 channel has been approximated by the CSCG distribution 𝒞𝒩(0,Nfi,k(j)fr(j))\mathcal{CN}\left(0,Nf_{{\rm{i}},k}^{(j)}f_{\rm{r}}^{(j)}\right). Since both the direct interference channel and the cascaded UE mm-IRS jj-BS 0 channel follow the CSCG distribution, the composite interference channel bd,k+jȷbir,k(j)b_{{\rm{d}},k}+\sum_{j\in\jmath}{b_{{\rm{ir}},k}^{(j)}} from UE kΛu\{0}k\in\Lambda_{\rm{u}}^{\prime}\backslash\left\{0\right\} is the summation of independent CSCG RVs, which follows the CSCG distribution with zero mean and covariance 𝔼{|bd,k|2}+jȷ𝔼{|bir,k(j)|2}\mathbb{E}\left\{|b_{{\rm{d}},k}|^{2}\right\}+\sum_{j\in\jmath}{\mathbb{E}\left\{|b_{{\rm{ir}},k}^{(j)}|^{2}\right\}}. Therefore, the composite interference power Ik=|bd,k+jȷbir(j)|2I_{k}=|b_{{\rm{d}},k}+\sum_{j\in\jmath}{b_{\rm{ir}}^{(j)}}|^{2} follows an exponential distribution with the expression given by

IkI¯kξk=Pk(fd,k+Njȷfi,kjfr(j))ξk,\small I_{k}\triangleq\overline{I}_{k}\xi_{k}=P_{k}\left(f_{{\rm{d}},k}+N\sum_{j\in\jmath}{f_{{\rm{i}},k}^{j}f_{\rm{r}}^{(j)}}\right)\xi_{k}, (56)

where I¯k\overline{I}_{k} is the average interference power and ξk=dist.ξexp(1)\xi_{k}\overset{\text{dist.}}{=}\xi\sim\exp(1). Therefore, given the locations of IoT devices and IRSs, the aggregated interference power from all the active IoT devices is the summation of exponential RVs which are independent while not identically distributed, following the Erlang distribution [38]. Then, the mean conditional interference power can be derived by

I¯kΛu\{0}I¯k=kΛu\{0}Pk(fd,k+Njȷfi,k(j)fr(j)).\small\overline{I}\triangleq\sum_{k\in\Lambda_{\rm{u}}^{\prime}\backslash\left\{0\right\}}{\overline{I}_{k}}=\sum_{k\in\Lambda_{\rm{u}}^{\prime}\backslash\left\{0\right\}}P_{k}\left({f_{{\rm{d}},k}+N\sum_{j\in\jmath}{f_{{\rm{i}},k}^{(j)}f_{\rm{r}}^{(j)}}}\right). (57)

By using the approximation rk,jykr_{k,j}\approx y_{k}, fr(j)fd,kf_{r}^{(j)}\approx f_{{\rm{d}},k} for jȷj\in\jmath, we have I¯kυIfd,k\overline{I}_{k}\approx\upsilon_{\rm{I}}f_{\text{d},k} and

I¯υIkΛu\{0}Pkfd,k,\small\overline{I}\approx\upsilon_{\rm{I}}\sum_{k\in\Lambda_{\rm{u}}^{\prime}\backslash\left\{0\right\}}{P_{k}f_{\text{d},k}}, (58)

where υI1+Njȷfi,0(0)\upsilon_{\rm{I}}\triangleq 1+N\sum_{j\in\jmath}{f_{{\rm{i}},0}^{(0)}} is the relative power gain of scattering paths with regards to all IRSs in ȷ\jmath over that of the UE-BS direct path.
To derive the spatial throughput later, we first obtain the interference power distribution conditioned on d0d_{0} and x0x_{0}, which can be represented by the Laplace transform of the aggregated interference in Lemma 2. The aggregated interference can be expressed as

IυIkΛu\{0}Pkfd,kξk.\small I\approx\upsilon_{\rm{I}}\sum_{k\in\Lambda_{\rm{u}}^{\prime}\backslash\left\{0\right\}}{P_{k}f_{\text{d},k}\xi_{k}}. (59)

𝐋𝐞𝐦𝐦𝐚 2.\mathbf{Lemma\;2.} The Laplace transform of interference power conditioned on d0d_{0} and x0x_{0} is given by

I|d0,x0(s)=exp(2πλuUI(sυIρ)),\small\mathcal{L}_{I|_{d_{0},x_{0}}}\left(s\right)=\exp\left(-2\pi\lambda_{\rm{u}}^{\prime}U_{I}\left(s\upsilon_{\rm{I}}\rho\right)\right), (60)

where the function UI()U_{I}(\cdot) is defined as

UI(x)00y12πλuDkeλuπDk21+x(y2+HB2)α/2(Dk2+HB2)ϵα/2dDkydy.\small U_{I}(x)\triangleq\int_{0}^{\infty}\int_{0}^{y}{1-\frac{2\pi\lambda_{\rm{u}}D_{k}e^{-\lambda_{\rm{u}}\pi D_{k}^{2}}}{1+x\left(y^{2}+H_{\rm{B}}^{2}\right)^{-\alpha/2}\left(D_{k}^{2}+H_{\rm{B}}^{2}\right)^{\epsilon\alpha/2}}}{\rm d}D_{k}y{\rm d}y. (61)

Proof:\emph{Proof}: See Appendix A.                             
Based on (59) and ξk=dist.ξexp(1),k\xi_{k}\overset{\text{dist.}}{=}\xi\sim\exp(1),\forall k, the mean interference power is given by

𝔼{I}\displaystyle\mathbb{E}\left\{I\right\} 𝔼{ξ}𝔼{υI}𝔼{kΛu\{0}fd,k}=υIEI,\displaystyle\approx\mathbb{E}\left\{\xi\right\}\mathbb{E}\left\{\upsilon_{\rm{I}}\right\}\mathbb{E}\left\{\sum_{k\in\Lambda_{\rm{u}}^{\prime}\backslash\left\{0\right\}}{f_{\text{d},k}}\right\}=\upsilon_{\rm{I}}E_{\rm{I}}, (62)

where EIE_{\rm{I}} denotes the expectation of the summation of direct channel power from interfering UEs kΛu\{0}k\in\Lambda_{\rm{u}}^{\prime}\backslash\left\{0\right\} conditioned on x0x_{0}, which is given by

EI=(a)2πλuy=0Dk=0y2πλuDkeλuπDk2(Dk2+HB2)ϵα/2ρ(y2+HB2)α/2dDkydy.\displaystyle E_{\rm{I}}\overset{\text{(a)}}{=}2\pi\lambda_{\rm{u}}^{\prime}\int_{y=0}^{\infty}\int_{D_{k}=0}^{y}2\pi\lambda_{\rm{u}}D_{k}e^{-\lambda_{\rm{u}}\pi D_{k}^{2}}\left(D_{k}^{2}+H_{\rm{B}}^{2}\right)^{\epsilon\alpha/2}\ \rho\left(y^{2}+H_{\rm{B}}^{2}\right)^{-\alpha/2}{\rm d}D_{k}y{\rm d}y. (63)

Note that (a) is due to the PPP-distributed UEs locations, which helps calculate the aggregated interference over the 2D plane.

III-C Coverage Probability and Spatial Throughput

In this section, we derive the energy coverage probability and UL coverage probability. In separate stages based on the derived signal power distribution and interference power distribution, which leads to the overall coverage probability and spatial throughput eventually.

III-C1 Energy Coverage Probability

Based on the derived channel power gain distribution in (31), we derive the energy coverage probability in Theorem 1.
𝐓𝐡𝐞𝐨𝐫𝐞𝐦 1.\mathbf{Theorem\;1.} The probability that the energy harvested in the charging stage is higher than EminE_{\rm{min}} is given by

en=x0=0d0=0Den|d0,x0fd0(d0)fx0(x0)dd0dx0,\small\mathbb{P}_{\rm{en}}=\int_{x_{0}=0}^{\infty}\int_{d_{0}=0}^{D}{\mathbb{P}_{\rm{en}}|_{d_{0},x_{0}}f_{d_{0}}(d_{0})f_{x_{0}}(x_{0}){\rm d}d_{0}{\rm d}x_{0}}, (64)

where en|d0,x0\mathbb{P}_{\rm{en}}|_{d_{0},x_{0}} is the conditional energy coverage probability given by

en|d0,x0{Sdr>C(τ)}|d0,x0+{Sid>C(τ)}|d0,x0\displaystyle\mathbb{P}_{\rm{en}}|_{d_{0},x_{0}}\approx\mathbb{P}\left\{S_{\rm{dr}}>C(\tau)\right\}|_{d_{0},x_{0}}+\mathbb{P}\left\{S_{\rm{id}}>C(\tau)\right\}|_{d_{0},x_{0}} (65)
+{Sdr+Sid>C(τ)|Sdr,Sid<C(τ)}|d0,x0{Sdr<C(τ)}|d0,x0{Sid<C(τ)}|d0,x0\displaystyle+\mathbb{P}\left\{S_{\rm{dr}}+S_{\rm{id}}>C(\tau)|S_{\rm{dr}},S_{\rm{id}}<C(\tau)\right\}|_{d_{0},x_{0}}\mathbb{P}\left\{S_{\rm{dr}}<C(\tau)\right\}|_{d_{0},x_{0}}\mathbb{P}\left\{S_{\rm{id}}<C(\tau)\right\}|_{d_{0},x_{0}}
{Sdr>C(τ)}|d0,x0{Sid>C(τ)}|d0,x0,\displaystyle-\mathbb{P}\left\{S_{\rm{dr}}>C(\tau)\right\}|_{d_{0},x_{0}}\cdot\mathbb{P}\left\{S_{\rm{id}}>C(\tau)\right\}|_{d_{0},x_{0}},

while for kdrk_{\rm{dr}} is less than the given threshold k~dr\widetilde{k}_{\rm{dr}}, the conditional probabilities of {Sdr>C(τ)}S_{\rm{dr}}>C(\tau)\}, {Sid>C(τ)}\{S_{\rm{id}}>C(\tau)\} and {Sdr+Sid>C(τ)|Sdr,Sid<C(τ)}\{S_{\rm{dr}}+S_{\rm{id}}>C(\tau)|S_{\rm{dr}},S_{\rm{id}}<C(\tau)\} are, respectively, given by

{Sdr>C\displaystyle\mathbb{P}\{S_{\rm{dr}}>C (τ)}|d0,x0i=0kdr1(1)ii!isi[Sid|d0,x0(sθdr)]s=1,\displaystyle(\tau)\}|_{d_{0},x_{0}}\approx\sum_{i=0}^{k_{dr}-1}\frac{\left(-1\right)^{i}}{i!}\frac{\partial^{i}}{\partial s^{i}}\left[\mathcal{L}_{S_{\rm{id}}|_{d_{0},x_{0}}}\left(\frac{s}{\theta_{\rm{dr}}}\right)\right]_{s=1}, (66)
{Sid>C(τ)}|d0,x011[1sSid|d0,x0(s)](z),\displaystyle\mathbb{P}\left\{S_{\rm{id}}>C(\tau)\right\}|_{d_{0},x_{0}}\approx 1-\mathcal{L}^{-1}\left[\frac{1}{s}\mathcal{L}_{S_{\rm{id}}|_{d_{0},x_{0}}}\left(s\right)\right]\left(z\right), (67)
{Sdr+Sid>C(τ)|\displaystyle\mathbb{P}\left\{S_{\rm{dr}}+S_{\rm{id}}>C(\tau)|\right. Sdr,Sid<C(τ)}|d0,x0\displaystyle\left.S_{\rm{dr}},S_{\rm{id}}<C(\tau)\right\}|_{d_{0},x_{0}}\approx (68)
i=0kdr1(1)ii!isi[exp(sC(τ)θdr+2πλBU(sυSθdr))]s=1.\displaystyle\sum_{i=0}^{k_{\rm{dr}}-1}{\frac{\left(-1\right)^{i}}{i!}\frac{\partial i}{\partial s^{i}}\left[\exp\left(-\frac{sC(\tau)}{\theta_{\rm{dr}}}+2\pi\lambda_{B}U\left(\frac{s\upsilon_{S}}{\theta_{\rm{dr}}}\right)\right)\right]_{s=1}}.

Proof:\emph{Proof}: See Appendix B.                             
Remark 1: It is worth noting that there exists correlation between the two events {Sdr>C(τ)}\{S_{\rm{dr}}>C(\tau)\} and {Sid>C(τ)}\{S_{\rm{id}}>C(\tau)\}, which is extremely hard to derive. Thus, to simplify the analysis, we ignore the correlation and assume that the two events are independent. We will show that the approximation is acceptable in Fig. 3 in the numerical results part.                     

III-C2 UL Coverage Probability

Due to the correlation between the locations of BSs and scheduled IoT devices, it’s challenging to derive the exact UL analysis [14]. The authors in [14] proposed an approximation method by assuming that the locations of devices follow a PPP and handling the dependence between the typical link length and interferer link length. With such an approximation, we derive the UL coverage probability in Theorem 2.
𝐓𝐡𝐞𝐨𝐫𝐞𝐦 2.\mathbf{Theorem\;2.} The probability that the received SINR of the typical UE 0 is greater than a given threshold γ¯\overline{\gamma} is given by

UL=x0=0d0=0DUL|d0,x0fd0(d0)fx0(x0)dd0dx0,\displaystyle\mathbb{P}_{\rm{UL}}=\int_{x_{0}=0}^{\infty}\int_{d_{0}=0}^{D}{\mathbb{P}_{\rm{UL}}|_{d_{0},x_{0}}f_{d_{0}}(d_{0})f_{x_{0}}(x_{0}){\rm d}d_{0}{\rm d}x_{0}}, (69)

where UL|d0,x0\mathbb{P}_{\rm{UL}}|_{d_{0},x_{0}} is the conditional coverage probability given by

UL|d0,x0i=0kUL1(1)ii!isi[sγ¯WθUL2πλuUI(sγ¯υIρθUL)]s=1.\displaystyle\mathbb{P}_{\rm{UL}}|_{d_{0},x_{0}}\approx\sum_{i=0}^{k_{\rm{UL}}-1}{\frac{\left(-1\right)^{i}}{i!}\frac{\partial^{i}}{\partial s^{i}}\left[-\frac{s\overline{\gamma}W}{\theta_{\rm{UL}}}-2\pi\lambda_{\rm{u}}^{\prime}U_{I}\left(\frac{s\overline{\gamma}\upsilon_{\rm{I}}\rho}{\theta_{\rm{UL}}}\right)\right]_{s=1}}. (70)

Proof:\emph{Proof}: See Appendix C.                              
Remark 2: The results derived in (69) degenerates into the traditional regularly powered IRS-assisted UL transmission case without EH, by setting en=1\mathbb{P}_{\text{en}}=1 and λu=λB\lambda_{\rm{u}}^{{}^{\prime}}=\lambda_{\rm{B}}.          
In both Theorem 1 and Theorem 2, we need to discuss the scale parameters kdrk_{dr} and kULk_{UL} of Gamma distribution. For non-integer kdr(kUL)k_{dr}(k_{UL}), its upper and lower bounds are utilized to approximate the conditional energy (UL) coverage probability. Take Theorem 1 as an example, we approximate en|d0,x0\mathbb{P}_{\rm{en}}|_{d_{0},x_{0}} by the following linear combination [18],

en|d0,x0=Ωen|d0,x0,k+(1Ω)en|d0,x0,k,\small\mathbb{P}_{\rm{en}}|_{d_{0},x_{0}}=\varOmega\mathbb{P}_{\rm{en}}|_{d_{0},x_{0},\lfloor k\rfloor}+\left(1-\varOmega\right)\mathbb{P}_{\rm{en}}|_{d_{0},x_{0},\lceil k\rceil}, (71)

where \lceil\cdot\rceil and \lfloor\cdot\rfloor are the ceiling and floor functions, and Ω\varOmega is the weight between the ceiling and is the weight functions given by

Ωζ(kk)ζ(kk)+(kk),\small\varOmega\triangleq\frac{\zeta\left(\lceil k\rceil-k\right)}{\zeta\left(\lceil k\rceil-k\right)+\left(k-\lfloor k\rfloor\right)}, (72)

where ζ>0\zeta>0 is a parameter to illustrate the relationship between en|d0,x0\mathbb{P}_{\rm{en}}|_{d_{0},x_{0}} and kk. The weights Ω\varOmega and (1Ω)\left(1-\varOmega\right) are set as Ω1Ω=Mkkkk\frac{\varOmega}{1-\varOmega}=M\frac{\lceil k\rceil-k}{k-\lfloor k\rfloor}.
For the large value of kk, we approximate the Gamma distribution to the normal distribution with μ𝔼{S}|d0,x0\mu\triangleq\mathbb{E}\left\{S\right\}|_{d_{0},x_{0}} as the mean value, and var{S}|d0,x0\sqrt{\rm{var}\left\{S\right\}|_{d_{0},x_{0}}} as the standard deviation. Since the former is much larger than the latter, SS can be approximated by μ\mu.
According to Theorem 1 and Theorem 2, we derive the overall coverage probability in the next subsection.

III-C3 Overall Coverage Probability and Spatial Throughput

With the derived energy coverage probability and UL coverage probability, we obtain the overall coverage probability in this subsection.
𝐂𝐨𝐫𝐨𝐥𝐥𝐚𝐫𝐲 1.\mathbf{Corollary\;1.} The overall coverage probability PcovP_{\rm{cov}} of the typical UE 0 is

cov\displaystyle\mathbb{P}_{\rm{cov}} =en×UL,\displaystyle=\mathbb{P}_{\rm{en}}\times\mathbb{P}_{\rm{UL}}, (73)

where en\mathbb{P}_{\rm{en}} and UL\mathbb{P}_{\rm{UL}} are given by (64) and (69), respectively.
Proof: By definition, the overall coverage probability can be derived by multiplying the energy coverage probability by the UL coverage probability.                   
𝐑𝐞𝐦𝐚𝐫𝐤 3.\mathbf{Remark\;3.} Note that the proposed analytical framework can be used to characterize the regularly powered IRS-assisted UL IoT network performance by specializing some system parameters. To be specific, the parameters that leads to the result en1\mathbb{P}_{\rm{en}}\to 1, for instance, a large BS density λB\lambda_{\rm{B}}, a large number of reflecting element NN, or a sufficiently large τ\tau result in the regularly powered IRS-assisted UL IoT network. In this case, the coverage probability is equivalent to UL\mathbb{P}_{\rm{UL}} in (69) by setting λu=λB\lambda_{\rm{u}}=\lambda_{\rm{B}}.                                  
By definition, the spatial throughput ν\nu in (28) can be derived by substituting en\mathbb{P}_{\rm{en}} and cov\mathbb{P}_{\rm{cov}} in (64) and (73), respectively. The complete expression of spatial throughput is omitted to keep concise.

III-C4 Power Efficiency

The EHE in charging stage and EE in UL stage can be calculated by substituting the expressions of 𝔼{Eh}\mathbb{E}\{E_{\text{h}}\} and 𝔼{P0}\mathbb{E}\{P_{0}\} into (29) and (30), which are given by,

𝔼{Eh}=00DτTη(𝔼{Sdr}|d0,x0+𝔼{Sid}|x0)fd0(d0)fx0(x0)dd0dx0,\small\mathbb{E}\{E_{\text{h}}\}=\int_{0}^{\infty}\int_{0}^{D}\tau T\eta\left(\mathbb{E}\{S_{\rm{dr}}\}|_{d_{0},x_{0}}+\mathbb{E}\{S_{\rm{id}}\}|_{x_{0}}\right)f_{d_{0}}(d_{0})f_{x_{0}}(x_{0})\text{d}d_{0}\text{d}x_{0}, (74)
𝔼{P0}=0ρ(x02+HB2)ϵα/2fx0(x0)dx0,\small\mathbb{E}\{P_{0}\}=\int_{0}^{\infty}\rho(x_{0}^{2}+H_{\text{B}}^{2})^{\epsilon\alpha/2}f_{x_{0}}(x_{0})\text{d}x_{0}, (75)

where fx0(x0)f_{x_{0}}(x_{0}) (fd0(d0))(f_{d_{0}}(d_{0})), 𝔼{Sdr}|d0,x0\mathbb{E}\{S_{\text{dr}}\}|_{d_{0},x_{0}} and 𝔼{Sid}|x0\mathbb{E}\{S_{\text{id}}\}|_{x_{0}} are given by (55), (33) and (46), respectively.
Remark 4. The following technical challenges should be addressed when modifying the proposed analytical framework to adapt to the multiple-antenna BS case. Firstly, both active beamforming precoder/receiver at BSs and passive beamforming design of IRSs should be considered, and jointly optimized to maximize the network performance in charging stage and UL stage. Secondly, the signal power distributions in both charging stage and UL stage, and the interference distribution in UL stage are dependent on the joint beamformer design, which is unknown for the multiple-antenna BS case in the large-scale network scenario.                           

Refer to caption
Figure 2: Energy coverage probability vs. τ\tau.
Refer to caption
Figure 3: Energy coverage probability as a function of SINR threshold for different IRS reflecting element numbers NN.

IV NUMERICAL RESULTS

In this section, the analytical (Ana.) framework is verified via extensive simulations (Sim.) by evaluating the network performance in terms of energy coverage probability, UL coverage probability, overall coverage probability, network spatial throughput and power efficiency, respectively. To show the superiority of IRSs in enhancing the coverage probability, we choose the traditional RF-powered IoT network considered in [28] as a benchmark. Compared to the IRS-assisted RF-powered IoT network, the only difference is that there are no IRSs existing in the the traditional RF-powered IoT network, denoted by ”W/o IRS” in the simulations. Unless otherwise specified, we use the default values of the system parameters as follows: HB=10mH_{\rm{B}}=10\;\text{m}, HI=1mH_{\rm{I}}=1\;\text{m}, λB=103m2\lambda_{\rm{B}}=10^{-3}\;\text{m}^{2}, λI=102m2\lambda_{\rm{I}}=10^{-2}\;\rm{m}^{2}, α=4\alpha=4, Pt=46dBmP_{\rm{t}}=46\;\text{dBm}, N=1000N=1000, fc=2GHzf_{c}=2\;\text{GHz}, σ2=147dBm\sigma^{2}=-147\;\text{dBm}, D=25mD=25\;\text{m}, ρ=78.5dBm\rho=-78.5\;\text{dBm}, η=0.5\eta=0.5, ϵ=0.8\epsilon=0.8, T=0.01sT=0.01\;\text{s}, τ=0.5\tau=0.5, Pcb=2.5P_{\text{cb}}=2.5 W, Pcu=20P_{\text{cu}}=20 mW [34] and ηb=ηu=0.2\eta_{\text{b}}=\eta_{\text{u}}=0.2 [33].

IV-A Energy Coverage Probability

In this subsection, we characterize the impact of IRSs in the charging stage by setting ζ=0.5\zeta=0.5 in (72). Fig. 3 depicts the energy coverage probability en\mathbb{P}_{\rm{en}} given in (64) in Theorem 1 along with the probabilities of events {Sdr>C(τ)}\{S_{\rm{dr}}>C(\tau)\}, {Sid>C(τ)}\{S_{\rm{id}}>C(\tau)\}, and {Sdr+Sid>C(τ)|Sdr<C(τ),Sid<C(τ)}\{S_{\rm{dr}}+S_{\rm{id}}>C(\tau)|S_{\rm{dr}}<C(\tau),S_{\rm{id}}<C(\tau)\}, respectively. We observe a very perfect match between the theoretical analysis and the simulation results except for en\mathbb{P}_{\rm{en}}. The reason for this is that we ignore the correlation between the events {Sdr>C(τ)}\{S_{\rm{dr}}>C(\tau)\} and {Sid>C(τ)}\{S_{\rm{id}}>C(\tau)\} to simplify the analysis, and the independent approximation leads to an acceptable gap. In Fig. 3, we observe that en\mathbb{P}_{\rm{en}} increases with the time slot ratio τ\tau. This is intuitive since a larger τ\tau provides more opportunities for an IoT device to harvest energy, leading to a higher en\mathbb{P}_{\rm{en}}.
In Fig. 3, we quantify the gains achieved by IRS beamforming in the charging stage by varying the IRS reflecting element number NN. We observe that increasing BS density λb\lambda_{b} or IRS reflecting element number NN leads to a higher en\mathbb{P}_{\rm{en}}. This can be explained by the fact that a denser BS deployment or a larger IRS enhances the harvested RF power. Compared to the conventional network scenario without IRS deployment, IRS-assisted EH scheme with passive beamforming results in a more than 30%\% enhancement in en\mathbb{P}_{\rm{en}} for N=4000N=4000 with BS density λb\lambda_{b} = 10310^{-3} m2\rm{m}^{-2}. Moreover, when λb\lambda_{b} achieves λb\lambda_{b}^{*}, i.e., λb=5×103\lambda_{b}^{*}=5\times 10^{-3} m2\rm{m}^{-2} for the given system parameters, the energy coverage condition {EhEmin}\{E_{\rm{h}}\geq E_{\rm{min}}\} satisfies with an extremely high probability, resulting in en1\mathbb{P}_{\rm{en}}\to 1.

Refer to caption
Figure 4: UL Coverage Probability as a function of SINR threshold for different IRS reflecting element numbers NN.
Refer to caption
Figure 5: UL Coverage Probability as a function of IRS density ΛI\Lambda_{\rm{I}} for different IRS reflecting element numbers NN.

IV-B UL Coverage Probability

In this subsection, we focus on the performance analysis of the UL transmission mode by setting ζ=1\zeta=1 in (72). In Fig. 5, the UL coverage probability is evaluated by varying SINR threshold γ¯\overline{\gamma} and IRS reflecting element number NN, with the conventional UL coverage probability without IRSs being given as a benchmark. We observe that UL\mathbb{P}_{\rm{UL}} reduces with the increasing SINR threshold γ¯\overline{\gamma}, and grows with the element number NN. This is because the passive beamforming gain provided by IRSs increases with NN in the order of O(N2)O(N^{2}) which enlarges the UL received signal power and hence the UL coverage probability. Compared to the benchmark, the coverage enhancement achieved by IRS passive beamforming can be as large as 0.65 with N=4000N=4000 for γ=0\gamma=0 dB.
In Fig. 5, we evaluate the UL coverage probability UL\mathbb{P}_{\rm{UL}} as a function of IRS density λI\lambda_{\rm{I}} and IRS reflecting element number NN. From Fig. 5, we find that UL\mathbb{P}_{\rm{UL}} grows with the increasing λI\lambda_{\rm{I}} and NN. This can be explained by the fact that λI\lambda_{\rm{I}} is large enough to achieve a full energy coverage, i.e., en=1\mathbb{P}_{\text{en}}=1, and passive beamforming gain provided by IRS dominates the growing interference contributed by IRS random scattering, resulting in a higher UL\mathbb{P}_{\rm{UL}}.
The mean signal power 𝔼{SUL}\mathbb{E}\left\{S_{\rm{UL}}\right\} and interference 𝔼{I}\mathbb{E}\{\rm{I}\} derived in (54) and (62) by varying λI\lambda_{\rm{I}} and NN are illustrated in Fig. 7. We observe that 𝔼{SUL}\mathbb{E}\left\{S_{\rm{UL}}\right\} increases with the growing λI\lambda_{\rm{I}}, while 𝔼{I}\mathbb{E}\{\rm{I}\} remains almost unchanged. This is consistent with the observations in Fig. 3 and Fig. 5.

IV-C Overall Coverage Probability and Network Spatial Throughput

Refer to caption
Figure 6: Signal power and interference power as a function of IRS density λI\lambda_{\rm{I}} for different IRS reflecting element numbers NN.
Refer to caption
Figure 7: Coverage probability vs. charging stage ratio τ\tau.

In this subsection, we focus on the overall coverage probability and network spatial throughput. In Fig. 7, we set BS density λB=5×103\lambda_{B}=5\times 10^{-3} m2\rm{m}^{-2} and evaluate en\mathbb{P}_{\rm{en}}, UL\mathbb{P}_{\rm{UL}} and cov\mathbb{P}_{\rm{cov}} with and without IRSs as a function of charging stage ratio τ\tau. To show the availability of the proposed IRS-assisted RF EH scheme, we plot the coverage probability with regularly powered IoT devices as the benchmark. In this case, all IoT devices are full of energy which is equivalent to en=1\mathbb{P}_{\rm{en}}=1. We observe that when τ\tau reaches a certain value, en\mathbb{P}_{\rm{en}} approaches to 1 and hence, UL\mathbb{P}_{\rm{UL}} approaches to cov\mathbb{P}_{\rm{cov}}. This is because although a growing τ\tau enlarges the density of interferer which declines UL\mathbb{P}_{\rm{UL}}, the improvement in en\mathbb{P}_{\rm{en}} dominates the reduction in UL\mathbb{P}_{\rm{UL}}, leading to the growth in cov\mathbb{P}_{\rm{cov}}. By comparing with the traditional network without IRS deployment, we observe the significant superiority of IRS passive beamforming in both en\mathbb{P}_{\rm{en}} and UL\mathbb{P}_{\rm{UL}}. By comparing with the regularly powered benchmark, we observe that when τ\tau reaches a certain value, i.e., τ=0.4\tau=0.4 for the IRS case, the RF powered IoT network achieves nearly the same overall coverage probability as that of the regularly powered IoT network. What’s more, even for the regularly powered IoT network, IRSs passive beamforming brings huge enhancement in coverage, more than 0.3 with the given parameters. The comprehensiveness of the proposed analytical framework lies in that it degenerates into the IRS-assisted regularly-power IoT network when en=1\mathbb{P}_{\rm{en}}=1 is satisfied.
Fig. 9 depicts the overall coverage probability cov\mathbb{P}_{\rm{cov}} by varying charging stage ratio τ\tau for different power control factors ϵ\epsilon. We observe that a larger ϵ\epsilon results in a lower cov\mathbb{P}_{\rm{cov}}. Note that Emin=(1τ)Tρ(x02+HB2)ϵα/2E_{\rm{min}}=(1-\tau)T\rho(x_{0}^{2}+H_{\text{B}}^{2})^{\epsilon\alpha/2}, a larger ϵ\epsilon leads to an increasing EminE_{\rm{min}}, which results in the decline of en\mathbb{P}_{\rm{en}}, leading to a lower cov\mathbb{P}_{\rm{cov}}.
In Fig. 9, we evaluate the average spatial throughput ν\nu as a function of charging stage ratio τ\tau and power control factor ϵ\epsilon. We observe that there exists an optimal τ\tau to maximize the average spatial throughput ν\nu. A larger ϵ\epsilon requires a higher proportion τ\tau to achieve the largest spatial throughput. Referring to (78), the average spatial throughput is related to the product of (1τ)(1-\tau), en\mathbb{P}_{\rm{en}} and cov\mathbb{P}_{\rm{cov}}. In addition, a tradeoff exists between τ\tau and en\mathbb{P}_{\rm{en}}. When ϵ\epsilon = 0.6, EminE_{\rm{min}} is easy to satisfy, and the spatial throughput is dominated by τcov\tau\mathbb{P}_{\rm{cov}}. On the other hand, as ϵ\epsilon further enlarges, EminE_{\rm{min}} grows exponentially and the spatial throughput is limited by en\mathbb{P}_{\rm{en}}. In this case, a larger τ\tau is required to achieve a higher spatial throughput. As en\mathbb{P}_{\rm{en}} grows to a certain value, τ\tau dominates the spatial throughput, resulting in the decline of spatial throughput. Compared to the case without IRSs, we observe that deploying IRSs can greatly enhance the achievable network spatial throughput, while does not change the trend of ν\nu as a function of the charging stage ratio τ\tau, and hence the the optimal τ\tau that maximizes ν\nu. This is because with IRS passive beamforming, both the harvested signal power in the charging stage and the desired signal power in the UL stage are shown to scale with NN in the same order of O(N2)O(N^{2}), while only slightly increases the interference power, leading to the same level of enhancements in en\mathbb{P}_{\rm{en}} and UL\mathbb{P}_{\rm{UL}}.

Refer to caption
Figure 8: The overall coverage probability vs. charging stage ratio τ\tau for different power control factors ϵ\epsilon.
Refer to caption
Figure 9: Average spatial throughput as a function of charging stage ratio τ\tau for different power control factors ϵ\epsilon.

IV-D Power Efficiency

In Fig. 11, we evaluate EHE as a function of IRS density λI\lambda_{\rm{I}} for different IRS reflecting element numbers NN. We observe that the EHE increases with both λI\lambda_{\rm{I}} and NN. However, since the average distance beween an IoT device and its associated BS is as large as 15.8 m, the EHE is small due to the large path loss. Compared to the traditional RF-powered network without IRSs, the higher EHE achieved by the IRS-assisted RF-powered network is credited to the passive beamforming gain.
In Fig. 11, we evaluate EE as a function of charging stage ratio τ\tau for different power control factors ϵ\epsilon. We observe that as τ\tau increases, the EE first increases and then converges to a constant value. A smaller ϵ\epsilon results in a higher EE. Due to the power control strategy, the power consumption of an IoT device is mainly dependent on the static power PcuP_{\text{cu}}, and thus, the tendency of EE is dominated by the overall coverage probability cov\mathbb{P}_{\text{cov}}. The variation of EE with τ\tau can be explained by the tendency of cov\mathbb{P}_{\text{cov}} with τ\tau, as discussed in Fig. 7. What’s more, referring to Fig. 9, a smaller ϵ\epsilon leads to a higher cov\mathbb{P}_{\text{cov}}, and thus a larger EE. The comparison with the traditional RF-powered network without IRSs shows the effectiveness of IRS beamforming in information transfer.

Refer to caption
Figure 10: EHE as a function of IRS density λI\lambda_{\rm{I}} for different IRS reflecting element numbers NN.
Refer to caption
Figure 11: Energy efficiency as a function of charging stage ratio τ\tau for different power control factors ϵ\epsilon.

V CONCLUSION

In this work, we evaluated the effect of IRS passive beamforming gain on an IRS-assisted RF-powered IoT network. We adopted the time-switch architecture in which each time slot is partitioned into the charging stage and UL stage, where IRS beamforming was adopted in both EH and UL packet transmission. With the Gamma approximation method, we first characterized the signal power distribution in both charging stage and UL stage, and the interference power distribution in the UL stage. Then, we derived the analytical expressions of energy coverage probability, UL coverage probability, overall coverage probability network spatial throughput and power efficiency. By comparing with the conventional RF-powered IoT network without IRSs, we quantified the gain achieved by IRSs in both EH and information transfer. We also optimized the time slot ratio to maximize the network spatial throughput. There are several interesting concrete future directions to extend this work. One possible direction is to consider the multiple-antenna BS network scenario with the joint optimization of active/passive beamformer design being the focus. Another possible direction is to consider the application of IRSs-assisted RF-powered IoT networks to the mmWave or sub-THz frequency band.

Appendix A

Conditioned on d0d_{0} and x0x_{0}, the Laplace transform of the interference power from other BSs as

I|d0,x0(s)𝔼{esI}|d0,x0𝔼{es(kΛu\{0}υIPkfd,kξk)}|d0,x0\displaystyle\mathcal{L}_{I|_{d_{0},x_{0}}}\left(s\right)\triangleq\mathbb{E}\left\{e^{-sI}\right\}\lvert_{d_{0},x_{0}}\approx\mathbb{E}\left\{e^{-s\left(\sum_{k\in\Lambda_{\rm{u}}^{\prime}\backslash\left\{0\right\}}{\upsilon_{\rm{I}}P_{k}f_{\text{d},k}\xi_{k}}\right)}\right\}\Big{|}_{d_{0},x_{0}} (76)
=(a)𝔼λu{kΛu\{0}𝔼ξ{exp(sυIPkfd,kξk)}}|d0,x0\displaystyle\overset{\text{(a)}}{=}\mathbb{E}_{\lambda_{\rm{u}}^{\prime}}\left\{\prod_{k\in\Lambda_{\rm{u}}^{\prime}\backslash\left\{0\right\}}{\mathbb{E}_{\xi}\left\{\exp\left(-s\upsilon_{\rm{I}}P_{k}f_{\text{d},k}\xi_{k}\right)\right\}}\right\}\Bigg{|}_{d_{0},x_{0}}
=(b)exp(2πλu0(1eπλuy2)[1𝔼ξ,Dk{sυIρ(y2+HB2)α/2(Dk2+HB2)ϵα/2ξk}]ydy)\displaystyle\overset{\text{(b)}}{=}\exp\left(-2\pi\lambda_{\rm{u}}^{\prime}\int_{0}^{\infty}\left(1-e^{-\pi\lambda_{\rm{u}}y^{2}}\right)\left[1-\mathbb{E}_{\xi,D_{k}}\left\{-s\upsilon_{\rm{I}}\rho\left(y^{2}+H_{\rm{B}}^{2}\right)^{-\alpha/2}\left(D_{k}^{2}+H_{\rm{B}}^{2}\right)^{\epsilon\alpha/2}\xi_{k}\right\}\right]y{\rm d}y\right)
=(c)exp(2πλu00y12πλuDkeλuπDk21+sυIρ(y2+HB2)α/2(Dk2+HB2)ϵα/2dDkydy)\displaystyle\overset{\text{(c)}}{=}\exp\left(-2\pi\lambda_{\rm{u}}^{\prime}\int_{0}^{\infty}\int_{0}^{y}{1-\frac{2\pi\lambda_{\rm{u}}D_{k}e^{-\lambda_{\rm{u}}\pi D_{k}^{2}}}{1+s\upsilon_{\rm{I}}\rho\left(y^{2}+H_{\rm{B}}^{2}\right)^{-\alpha/2}\left(D_{k}^{2}+H_{\rm{B}}^{2}\right)^{\epsilon\alpha/2}}}{\rm d}D_{k}y{\rm d}y\right)
=exp(2πλuUI(sυIρ)),\displaystyle=\exp\left(-2\pi\lambda_{\rm{u}}^{\prime}U_{I}\left(s\upsilon_{\rm{I}}\rho\right)\right),

where (a) is due to the i.i.d. channel power gain ξk=dist.ξexp(1),k\xi_{k}\overset{\text{dist.}}{=}\xi\sim\exp(1),\forall k and independent Λu\Lambda_{\rm{u}}^{\prime}, (b) follows from the PGFL of PPP in which the positions of interferers are modeled by a non-homogeneous PPP Λu\Lambda_{\rm{u}}^{\prime} of density λIu(y)=λu(1exp(πλuy2))\lambda_{I_{u}}(y)=\lambda_{\rm{u}}(1-\exp(-\pi\lambda_{\rm{u}}y^{2})) which is a function of distance relative to the tagged BS, (c) follows from 𝔼ξ{esξ}1s+1\mathbb{E}_{\xi}\left\{e^{-s\xi}\right\}\triangleq\frac{1}{s+1} for ξexp(1)\xi\sim\exp(1), and UI()U_{I}(\cdot) is given by

UI(x)00y12πλuDkeλuπDk21+x(y2+HB2)α/2(Dk2+HB2)ϵα/2dDkydy.\displaystyle U_{I}(x)\triangleq\int_{0}^{\infty}\int_{0}^{y}{1-\frac{2\pi\lambda_{\rm{u}}D_{k}e^{-\lambda_{\rm{u}}\pi D_{k}^{2}}}{1+x\left(y^{2}+H_{\rm{B}}^{2}\right)^{-\alpha/2}\left(D_{k}^{2}+H_{\rm{B}}^{2}\right)^{\epsilon\alpha/2}}}{\rm d}D_{k}y{\rm d}y. (77)

Appendix B

Conditioned on d0d_{0} and x0x_{0}, according to the definition of en\mathbb{P}_{\rm{en}} in (23), we have

en|d0,x0\displaystyle\mathbb{P}_{\rm{en}}|_{d_{0},x_{0}} {τTη(Sdr+Sid)>Emin}|d0,x0={Sdr+Sid>C(τ)}|d0,x0,\displaystyle\triangleq\mathbb{P}\left\{\tau T\eta\left(S_{\rm{dr}}+S_{\rm{id}}\right)>E_{\rm{min}}\right\}|_{d_{0},x_{0}}=\mathbb{P}\left\{S_{\rm{dr}}+S_{\rm{id}}>C\left(\tau\right)\right\}|_{d_{0},x_{0}}, (78)

where C(τ)(1τ)ρx0ϵατηC\left(\tau\right)\triangleq\frac{(1-\tau)\rho x_{0}^{\epsilon\alpha}}{\tau\eta} is a function of τ\tau.
Since either SdrS_{\rm{dr}} or SidS_{\rm{id}} could be greater than C(τ)C(\tau), we need to consider the following three cases: {Sdr>C(τ)}\{S_{\rm{dr}}>C(\tau)\}, {Sid>C(τ)}\{S_{\rm{id}}>C(\tau)\} and {Sdr+Sid>C(τ)|Sdr,Sid<C(τ)}\{S_{\rm{dr}}+S_{\rm{id}}>C(\tau)|S_{\rm{dr}},S_{\rm{id}}<C(\tau)\}. It is worth noting that there exists correlation between the events {Sdr>C(τ)}\left\{S_{\rm{dr}}>C(\tau)\right\} and {Sid>C(τ)}\left\{S_{\rm{id}}>C(\tau)\right\}. To simplify the analysis and maintain the tractability, we neglect the correlation and assume that the two events are independent. According to the total probability formula, the conditional energy coverage can be converted to the following form

{Sdr+Sid>C(τ)}|d0,x0{Sdr>C(τ)}|d0,x0+{Sid>C(τ)}|d0,x0\displaystyle\mathbb{P}\left\{S_{\rm{dr}}+S_{\rm{id}}>C\left(\tau\right)\right\}|_{d_{0},x_{0}}\approx\mathbb{P}\left\{S_{\rm{dr}}>C(\tau)\right\}|_{d_{0},x_{0}}+\mathbb{P}\left\{S_{\rm{id}}>C(\tau)\right\}|_{d_{0},x_{0}} (79)
+{Sdr+Sid>C(τ)|Sdr,Sid<C(τ)}|d0,x0{Sdr<C(τ)}|d0,x0{Sid<C(τ)}|d0,x0\displaystyle+\mathbb{P}\left\{S_{\rm{dr}}+S_{\rm{id}}>C(\tau)|S_{\rm{dr}},S_{\rm{id}}<C(\tau)\right\}|_{d_{0},x_{0}}\mathbb{P}\left\{S_{\rm{dr}}<C(\tau)\right\}|_{d_{0},x_{0}}\cdot\mathbb{P}\left\{S_{\rm{id}}<C(\tau)\right\}|_{d_{0},x_{0}}
{Sdr>C(τ)}|d0,x0{Sid>C(τ)}|d0,x0.\displaystyle-\mathbb{P}\left\{S_{\rm{dr}}>C(\tau)\right\}|_{d_{0},x_{0}}\cdot\mathbb{P}\left\{S_{\rm{id}}>C(\tau)\right\}|_{d_{0},x_{0}}.

We then need to derive the probabilities of the aforementioned three events. Specifically, we have approximated the distribution of Sdr|d0,x0S_{\rm{dr}}|_{d_{0},x_{0}} by the Gamma distribution Γ[kdr,θdr]\Gamma\left[k_{\rm{dr}},\theta_{\rm{dr}}\right] in (31). According to Appendix D of [18], for integer kdrk_{\rm{dr}}, the probability of Sdr>C(τ)S_{\rm{dr}}>C(\tau) conditioned on x0x_{0} and d0d_{0} is given by

{Sdr>C(τ)}|d0,x0Γ(kdr,C(τ)θdr)Γ(kdr)|d0,x0=i=0kdr1(1)ii!isi[YS|d0,x0(s)]s=1,\displaystyle\mathbb{P}\left\{S_{\rm{dr}}>C(\tau)\right\}|_{d_{0},x_{0}}\approx\frac{\Gamma\left(k_{\rm{dr}},\frac{C(\tau)}{\theta_{\rm{dr}}}\right)}{\Gamma\left(k_{\rm{dr}}\right)}\Bigg{|}_{d_{0},x_{0}}=\sum_{i=0}^{k_{dr}-1}\frac{\left(-1\right)^{i}}{i!}\frac{\partial^{i}}{\partial s^{i}}\left[\mathcal{L}_{Y_{S|_{d_{0},x_{0}}}}\left(s\right)\right]_{s=1}, (80)

where YSC(τ)θdrY_{S}\triangleq\frac{C(\tau)}{\theta_{\rm{dr}}}. Referring to (47), the Laplace transform of YSY_{S} conditioned on d0d_{0} and x0x_{0} is derived by

YS|d0,x0(s)𝔼{esYS}|d0,x0=Sid|d0,x0(sθdr),\displaystyle\mathcal{L}_{Y_{S}|_{d_{0},x_{0}}}\left(s\right)\triangleq\mathbb{E}\left\{e^{-sY_{S}}\right\}|_{d_{0},x_{0}}=\mathcal{L}_{S_{\rm{id}}|_{d_{0},x_{0}}}\left(\frac{s}{\theta_{\rm{dr}}}\right), (81)

where the Laplace transform of Sid|d0,x0S_{\rm{id}}|_{d_{0},x_{0}} is given by (76) in Appendix A.
According to the CDF of Sid|d0,x0S_{\rm{id}}|_{d_{0},x_{0}} in (49), the conditional probability of event {Sid>C(τ)}\{S_{\rm{id}}>C(\tau)\} is given by

{Sid>C(τ)}|d0,x0\displaystyle\mathbb{P}\left\{S_{\rm{id}}>C(\tau)\right\}|_{d_{0},x_{0}} =1{Sid<C(τ)}|d0,x0=11[1sSid|d0,x0(s)](z),\displaystyle=1-\mathbb{P}\left\{S_{\rm{id}}<C(\tau)\right\}|_{d_{0},x_{0}}=1-\mathcal{L}^{-1}\left[\frac{1}{s}\mathcal{L}_{S_{\rm{id}}|_{d_{0},x_{0}}}\left(s\right)\right]\left(z\right), (82)

where zC(τ)z\triangleq C(\tau) and FSid|d0,x0()F_{S_{\rm{id}}|_{d_{0},x_{0}}}\left(\cdot\right) is the conditional CDF of SidS_{\rm{id}} given by (49).
We then derive the probability of {Sdr+Sid>C(τ)|Sdr\left\{S_{\rm{dr}}+S_{\rm{id}}>C(\tau)|S_{\rm{dr}}\right. ,Sid<C(τ)}\left.,S_{\rm{id}}<C(\tau)\right\} conditioned on x0x_{0} and d0d_{0}. Because of Sdr,Sid<C(τ)S_{\rm{dr}},S_{\rm{id}}<C(\tau), we have C(τ)Sdr>0C(\tau)-S_{\rm{dr}}>0 and C(τ)Sid>0C(\tau)-S_{\rm{id}}>0. According to the approximation Sdr|d0,x0Γ[kdr,θdr]S_{\rm{dr}}|_{d_{0},x_{0}}\sim\Gamma\left[k_{\rm{dr}},\theta_{\rm{dr}}\right], we have

{Sdr+Sid>C(τ)|Sdr,Sid<C(τ)}|d0,x0\displaystyle\mathbb{P}\left\{S_{\rm{dr}}+S_{\rm{id}}>C(\tau)|S_{\rm{dr}},S_{\rm{id}}<C(\tau)\right\}|_{d_{0},x_{0}} 𝔼Sid{Γ(kdr,C(τ)Sidθdr)Γ(kdr)|Sid,Sdr<C(τ)}|d0,x0\displaystyle\approx\mathbb{E}_{S_{\rm{id}}}\left\{\frac{\Gamma\left(k_{\rm{dr}},\frac{C(\tau)-S_{\rm{id}}}{\theta_{\rm{dr}}}\right)}{\Gamma\left(k_{\rm{dr}}\right)}\Bigg{|}S_{\rm{id}},S_{\rm{dr}}<C(\tau)\right\}\Bigg{|}_{d_{0},x_{0}} (83)
=i=0kdr1(1)ii!isi[LYC|Sdr,Sid<C(τ),d0,x0(s)]s=1,\displaystyle=\sum_{i=0}^{k_{\rm{dr}}-1}{\frac{\left(-1\right)^{i}}{i!}\frac{\partial i}{\partial s^{i}}\left[L_{Y_{C\lvert{S_{\rm{dr}},S_{\rm{id}}<C(\tau),d_{0},x_{0}}}}\left(s\right)\right]_{s=1}},

where YCC(τ)SidθdrY_{C}\triangleq\frac{C(\tau)-S_{\rm{id}}}{\theta_{\rm{dr}}} and the Laplace transform of YCY_{C} conditioned on Sdr,Sid<C(τ)S_{\rm{dr}},S_{\rm{id}}<C(\tau), d0d_{0} and x0x_{0} is given by

LYC|Sdr,Sid<C(τ),d0,x0(s)𝔼{esYC}|Sdr,Sid<C(τ),d0,x0=exp(sC(τ)θdr)LSid|d0,x0(sθdr)=exp(VC(s)),\displaystyle L_{Y_{C|{S_{\rm{dr}},S_{\rm{id}}<C(\tau),d_{0},x_{0}}}}\left(s\right)\triangleq\mathbb{E}\left\{e^{-sY_{C}}\right\}|_{S_{\rm{dr}},S_{\rm{id}}<C(\tau),d_{0},x_{0}}=\frac{\exp\left(\frac{-sC(\tau)}{\theta_{\rm{dr}}}\right)}{L_{S_{\rm{id}}|_{d_{0},x_{0}}}\left(\frac{s}{\theta_{\rm{dr}}}\right)}=\exp\left(V_{C}\left(s\right)\right), (84)

where VC(s)sC(τ)θdr+2πλBU(sυSθdr)V_{C}\left(s\right)\triangleq-\frac{sC(\tau)}{\theta_{\rm{dr}}}+2\pi\lambda_{B}U\left(\frac{s\upsilon_{S}}{\theta_{\rm{dr}}}\right).

Appendix C

The UL coverage probability conditioned on d0d_{0} and x0x_{0} is

𝑷UL|d0,x0\displaystyle\boldsymbol{P}_{\rm{UL}}|_{d_{0},x_{0}} {γ>γ¯}|d0,x0={SUL>γ¯(I+W)}|d0,x0.\displaystyle\triangleq\mathbb{P}\left\{\gamma>\overline{\gamma}\right\}|_{d_{0},x_{0}}=\mathbb{P}\left\{S_{\rm{UL}}>{\overline{\gamma}}\left(I+W\right)\right\}|_{d_{0},x_{0}}. (85)

Note that (85) relates to the conditional SINR distribution through UL|d0,x0=1Fγ(γ¯)|d0,x0\mathbb{P}_{\rm{UL}}|_{d_{0},x_{0}}=1-F_{\gamma}\left(\overline{\gamma}\right)|_{d_{0},x_{0}}, with Fγ()|d0,x0F_{\gamma}\left(\centerdot\right)|_{d_{0},x_{0}} being the conditional SINR CDF.
Referring to (50) in section III.A{\rm III.A}, the signal power distribution conditioned on d0d_{0} and x0x_{0} is approximated by the Gamma distribution Γ[kUL,θUL]\Gamma\left[k_{\rm{UL}},\theta_{\rm{UL}}\right]. Therefore, for integer kULk_{\rm{UL}}, we derive the following conditional UL coverage probability, which is given by

UL|d0,x0\displaystyle\mathbb{P}_{\rm{UL}}|_{d_{0},x_{0}} 𝔼I{Γ(kUL,γ¯(I+W)θUL)Γ(kUL)}|d0,x0=i=0kUL1(1)ii!isi[YI|d0,x0(s)]s=1,\displaystyle\approx\mathbb{E}_{I}\left\{\frac{\Gamma\left(k_{\rm{UL}},\frac{\overline{\gamma}\left(I+W\right)}{\theta_{\rm{UL}}}\right)}{\Gamma\left(k_{\rm{UL}}\right)}\right\}\Bigg{|}_{d_{0},x_{0}}=\sum_{i=0}^{k_{\rm{UL}}-1}{\frac{\left(-1\right)^{i}}{i!}\frac{\partial^{i}}{\partial s^{i}}\left[\mathcal{L}_{Y_{I}|_{d_{0},x_{0}}}\left(s\right)\right]_{s=1}}, (86)

where Γ(,)\Gamma(\cdot,\cdot) denotes the upper incomplete Gamma function, and YIγ¯(I+W)θULY_{I}\triangleq\frac{\overline{\gamma}\left(I+W\right)}{\theta_{\rm{UL}}}. Based on (76) in Appendix A, the Laplace transform of YIY_{I} conditioned on d0d_{0} and x0x_{0} is given by

YI|d0,x0(s)\displaystyle\mathcal{L}_{Y_{I}|_{d_{0},x_{0}}}\left(s\right) 𝔼{esYI}|d0,x0=exp(sγ¯WθUL)I|d0,x0(sγ¯θUL)=exp(V(s)),\displaystyle\triangleq\mathbb{E}\left\{e^{-sY_{I}}\right\}|_{d_{0},x_{0}}=\exp\left(-\frac{s\overline{\gamma}W}{\theta_{\rm{UL}}}\right)\mathcal{L}_{I\lvert_{d_{0},x_{0}}}\left(\frac{s\overline{\gamma}}{\theta_{\rm{UL}}}\right)=\exp\left(V\left(s\right)\right), (87)

where V(s)sγ¯WθUL2πλuUI(sγ¯υIρθUL)V\left(s\right)\triangleq-\frac{s\overline{\gamma}W}{\theta_{\rm{UL}}}-2\pi\lambda_{\rm{u}}^{\prime}U_{I}\left(\frac{s\overline{\gamma}\upsilon_{\rm{I}}\rho}{\theta_{\rm{UL}}}\right).

References

  • [1] X. Lu, P. Wang, D. Niyato, D. I. Kim, and Z. Han, “Wireless Networks With RF Energy Harvesting: A Contemporary Survey,” IEEE Commun. Surveys Tuts., vol. 17, no. 2, pp. 757–789, 2015.
  • [2] H. Ju and R. Zhang, “Throughput Maximization in Wireless Powered Communication Networks,” IEEE Trans. Wirel. Commun., vol. 13, no. 1, pp. 418–428, 2014.
  • [3] Q. Wu and R. Zhang, “Towards smart and reconfigurable environment: Intelligent reflecting surface aided wireless network,” IEEE Commun. Mag., vol. 58, no. 1, pp. 106–112, 2020.
  • [4] Q. Wu, S. Zhang, B. Zheng, C. You, and R. Zhang, “Intelligent Reflecting Surface-Aided Wireless Communications: A Tutorial,” IEEE Trans. Commun., vol. 69, no. 5, pp. 3313–3351, 2021.
  • [5] M. Di Renzo, K. Ntontin, J. Song, F. H. Danufane, X. Qian, F. Lazarakis, J. De Rosny, D.-T. Phan-Huy, O. Simeone, R. Zhang, M. Debbah, G. Lerosey, M. Fink, S. Tretyakov, and S. Shamai, “Reconfigurable Intelligent Surfaces vs. Relaying: Differences, Similarities, and Performance Comparison,” IEEE Open J. Commun. Soc., vol. 1, pp. 798–807, 2020.
  • [6] Q. Wu, X. Zhou, and R. Schober, “IRS-Assisted Wireless Powered NOMA: Do We Really Need Different Phase Shifts in DL and UL?” IEEE Wirel. Commun. Lett., vol. 10, no. 7, pp. 1493–1497, 2021.
  • [7] D. Song, W. Shin, and J. Lee, “A Maximum Throughput Design for Wireless Powered Communication Networks With IRS-NOMA,” IEEE Wirel. Commun. Lett., vol. 10, no. 4, pp. 849–853, 2021.
  • [8] B. Lyu, P. Ramezani, D. T. Hoang, and A. Jamalipour, “IRS-Assisted Downlink and Uplink NOMA in Wireless Powered Communication Networks,” IEEE Trans. Veh. Technol., vol. 71, no. 1, pp. 1083–1088, 2022.
  • [9] B. Lyu, P. Ramezani, D. T. Hoang, S. Gong, Z. Yang, and A. Jamalipour, “Optimized Energy and Information Relaying in Self-Sustainable IRS-Empowered WPCN,” IEEE Trans. Commun., vol. 69, no. 1, pp. 619–633, 2021.
  • [10] M. Hua, Q. Wu, and H. Vincent Poor, “Power-Efficient Passive Beamforming and Resource Allocation for IRS-Aided WPCNs,” IEEE Trans. Commun., pp. 1–1, 2022, doi: 10.1109/TCOMM.2022.3161688 .
  • [11] Y. Zheng, S. Bi, Y.-J. A. Zhang, X. Lin, and H. Wang, “Joint Beamforming and Power Control for Throughput Maximization in IRS-Assisted MISO WPCNs,” IEEE Internet Things J., vol. 8, no. 10, pp. 8399–8410, 2021.
  • [12] Z. Chu, P. Xiao, M. Shojafar, D. Mi, W. Hao, J. Shi, and J. Zhong, “Intelligent Reflecting Surface Empowered Wireless Powered Caching Networks,” IEEE Internet Things J., pp. 1–1, 2022, doi: 10.1109/JIOT.2022.3142206.
  • [13] Z. Li, W. Chen, Q. Wu, H. Cao, K. Wang, and J. Li, “Robust Beamforming Design and Time Allocation for IRS-Assisted Wireless Powered Communication Networks,” IEEE Trans. Commun., vol. 70, no. 4, pp. 2838–2852, 2022.
  • [14] J. G. Andrews, A. K. Gupta, and H. S. Dhillon, “A Primer on Cellular Network Analysis Using Stochastic Geometry,” 2016. [Online]. Available: arxiv.org/abs/1604.03183
  • [15] H. Sun, X. Wang, Y. Zhang, and T. Q. S. Quek, “Performance analysis and cell association design for drone-assisted heterogeneous networks,” IEEE Trans. Veh. Technol., vol. 69, no. 11, pp. 13 741–13 755, 2020.
  • [16] Y. Zhang, Y. He, X. Wang, H. Sun, and T. Q. S. Quek, “Modeling and performance analysis of statistical priority-based multiple access: A stochastic geometry approach,” IEEE Internet Things J., pp. 1–1, 2022, doi: 10.1109/JIOT.2022.3144272.
  • [17] H. Elsawy, A. Sultan-Salem, M. S. Alouini, and M. Z. Win, “Modeling and Analysis of Cellular Networks using Stochastic Geometry: A Tutorial,” IEEE Commun. Surveys Tuts., vol. 19, no. 1, pp. 167–203, 2017.
  • [18] J. Lyu and R. Zhang, “Hybrid Active/Passive Wireless Network Aided by Intelligent Reflecting Surface: System Modeling and Performance Analysis,” IEEE Trans. Wirel. Commun., vol. 20, no. 11, pp. 7196–7212, 2021.
  • [19] M. A. Kishk and M.-S. Alouini, “Exploiting Randomly Located Blockages for Large-Scale Deployment of Intelligent Surfaces,” IEEE J. Sel. Areas Commun., vol. 39, no. 4, pp. 1043–1056, 2021.
  • [20] Y. Zhu, G. Zheng, and K.-K. Wong, “Stochastic Geometry Analysis of Large Intelligent Surface-Assisted Millimeter Wave Networks,” IEEE J. Sel. Areas Commun., vol. 38, no. 8, pp. 1749–1762, 2020.
  • [21] T. Shafique, H. Tabassum, and E. Hossain, “Stochastic Geometry Analysis of IRS-Assisted Downlink Cellular Networks,” IEEE Trans. Commun., vol. 70, no. 2, pp. 1442–1456, 2022.
  • [22] T. Hou, Y. Liu, Z. Song, X. Sun, Y. Chen, and L. Hanzo, “MIMO Assisted Networks Relying on Intelligent Reflective Surfaces: A Stochastic Geometry Based Analysis,” IEEE Trans. Veh. Technol., vol. 71, no. 1, pp. 571–582, 2022.
  • [23] Y. Sun, K. An, J. Luo, Y. Zhu, G. Zheng, and S. Chatzinotas, “Intelligent reflecting surface enhanced secure transmission against both jamming and eavesdropping attacks,” IEEE Trans. Veh. Technol., vol. 70, no. 10, pp. 11 017–11 022, 2021.
  • [24] Y. Sun, K. An, Y. Zhu, G. Zheng, K.-K. Wong, S. Chatzinotas, D. W. K. Ng, and D. Guan, “Energy-Efficient Hybrid Beamforming for Multilayer RIS-Assisted Secure Integrated Terrestrial-Aerial Networks,” IEEE Trans. Commun., vol. 70, no. 6, pp. 4189–4210, 2022.
  • [25] Y. Sun, K. An, Y. Zhu, G. Zheng, K.-K. Wong, S. Chatzinotas, H. Yin, and P. Liu, “RIS-Assisted Robust Hybrid Beamforming Against Simultaneous Jamming and Eavesdropping Attacks,” IEEE Trans. Wirel. Commun., pp. 1–1, 2022.
  • [26] O. Ozel and S. Ulukus, “AWGN channel under time-varying amplitude constraints with causal information at the transmitter,” in Proc. IEEE Asilomar, Pacific Grove, CA, USA, 2011, pp. 373–377.
  • [27] E. MolavianJazi and A. Yener, “Low-Latency Communications over Zero-Battery Energy Harvesting Channels,” in Proc. IEEE GLOBECOM, San Diego, CA, USA, 2015, pp. 1–6.
  • [28] M. A. Kishk and H. S. Dhillon, “Joint Uplink and Downlink Coverage Analysis of Cellular-based RF-powered IoT Network,” IEEE Trans. Green Commun. Netw., vol. 2, no. 2, pp. 446–459, 2018.
  • [29] J. G. Andrews, F. Baccelli, and R. K. Ganti, “A Tractable Approach to Coverage and Rate in Cellular Networks,” IEEE Trans. Commun., vol. 59, no. 11, pp. 3122–3134, 2011.
  • [30] Q. Wu and R. Zhang, “Intelligent Reflecting Surface Enhanced Wireless Network via Joint Active and Passive Beamforming,” IEEE Trans. Wirel. Commun., vol. 18, no. 11, pp. 5394–5409, 2019.
  • [31] Y. Yang, B. Zheng, S. Zhang, and R. Zhang, “Intelligent Reflecting Surface Meets OFDM: Protocol Design and Rate Maximization,” IEEE Trans. Commun., vol. 68, no. 7, pp. 4522–4535, 2020.
  • [32] B. Zheng and R. Zhang, “Intelligent Reflecting Surface-Enhanced OFDM: Channel Estimation and Reflection Optimization,” IEEE Wirel. Commun. Lett., vol. 9, no. 4, pp. 518–522, 2020.
  • [33] M. Sheng, L. Wang, X. Wang, Y. Zhang, C. Xu, and J. Li, “Energy efficient beamforming in miso heterogeneous cellular networks with wireless information and power transfer,” IEEE J. Sel. Areas Commun., vol. 34, no. 4, pp. 954–968, 2016.
  • [34] H. Sun, M. Sheng, M. Wildemeersch, T. Q. S. Quek, and J. Li, “Traffic adaptation and energy efficiency for small cell networks with dynamic tdd,” IEEE J. Sel. Areas Commun., vol. 34, no. 12, pp. 3234–3251, 2016.
  • [35] A. Moldovan, P. Karunakaran, I. F. Akyildiz, and W. H. Gerstacker, “Coverage and achievable rate analysis for indoor terahertz wireless networks,” in Proc. IEEE ICC, Paris, May, 2017, pp. 1–7.
  • [36] S. Atapattu, R. Fan, P. Dharmawansa, G. Wang, J. Evans, and T. A. Tsiftsis, “Reconfigurable Intelligent Surface Assisted Two–Way Communications: Performance Analysis and Optimization,” IEEE Trans. Commun., vol. 68, no. 10, pp. 6552–6567, 2020.
  • [37] F. W. J. Olver, D. W. Lozier, R. F. Boisvert, and C. W. Clark, “NIST Handbook of Mathematical Functions,” 2010.
  • [38] C. Forbes, M. Evans, N. Hastings, and B. Peacock, Statistical Distributions, Fourth Edition.   Statistical Distributions, Fourth Edition, 2010.