UAV-Enabled Wireless-Powered Underground Communication Networks: A Novel Time Allocation Approach

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Main Authors: Lin, Kaiqiang, Mao, Yijie, López, Onel Luis Alcaraz, Alouini, Mohamed-Slim
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
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author Lin, Kaiqiang
Mao, Yijie
López, Onel Luis Alcaraz
Alouini, Mohamed-Slim
author_facet Lin, Kaiqiang
Mao, Yijie
López, Onel Luis Alcaraz
Alouini, Mohamed-Slim
contents Wireless-powered underground communication networks (WPUCNs), which allow underground devices (UDs) to harvest energy from wireless signals for battery-free communication, offer a promising solution for sustainable underground monitoring. However, the severe wireless signal attenuation in challenging underground environments and the costly acquisition of channel state information (CSI) make large-scale WPUCNs economically infeasible in practice. To address this challenge, we introduce flexible unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) into WPUCNs, leading to UAV-enabled WPUCN systems. In this system, a UAV is first charged by a terrestrial hybrid access point (HAP), then flies to the monitoring area to wirelessly charge UDs. Afterwards, the UAV collects data from the UDs and finally returns to the HAP for data offloading. Based on the proposed UAV-enabled WPUCN system, we first propose its energy consumption model and a hybrid wireless energy transfer (WET) approach (i.e., UDs can harvest energy from both the HAP and the UAV) relying on full-CSI and CSI-free multi-antenna beamforming. Then, we formulate and address a time allocation problem to minimize the energy consumption of UAV, while ensuring that the throughput requirements of all UDs are met and all sensor data is offloaded. Through simulations of a realistic farming scenario, we demonstrate that the proposed hybrid WET approach outperforms other WET approaches, with performance gains influenced by the number of antennas, communication distance, number of UDs, and underground conditions. Additionally, under the optimized time allocation, we found that the proposed hybrid WET approach based on a CSI-free multi-antenna scheme achieves the lowest UAV's energy consumption among all WET mechanisms, thereby enabling sustainable underground monitoring in WPUCNs.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2507_14627
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle UAV-Enabled Wireless-Powered Underground Communication Networks: A Novel Time Allocation Approach
Lin, Kaiqiang
Mao, Yijie
López, Onel Luis Alcaraz
Alouini, Mohamed-Slim
Networking and Internet Architecture
Systems and Control
Wireless-powered underground communication networks (WPUCNs), which allow underground devices (UDs) to harvest energy from wireless signals for battery-free communication, offer a promising solution for sustainable underground monitoring. However, the severe wireless signal attenuation in challenging underground environments and the costly acquisition of channel state information (CSI) make large-scale WPUCNs economically infeasible in practice. To address this challenge, we introduce flexible unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) into WPUCNs, leading to UAV-enabled WPUCN systems. In this system, a UAV is first charged by a terrestrial hybrid access point (HAP), then flies to the monitoring area to wirelessly charge UDs. Afterwards, the UAV collects data from the UDs and finally returns to the HAP for data offloading. Based on the proposed UAV-enabled WPUCN system, we first propose its energy consumption model and a hybrid wireless energy transfer (WET) approach (i.e., UDs can harvest energy from both the HAP and the UAV) relying on full-CSI and CSI-free multi-antenna beamforming. Then, we formulate and address a time allocation problem to minimize the energy consumption of UAV, while ensuring that the throughput requirements of all UDs are met and all sensor data is offloaded. Through simulations of a realistic farming scenario, we demonstrate that the proposed hybrid WET approach outperforms other WET approaches, with performance gains influenced by the number of antennas, communication distance, number of UDs, and underground conditions. Additionally, under the optimized time allocation, we found that the proposed hybrid WET approach based on a CSI-free multi-antenna scheme achieves the lowest UAV's energy consumption among all WET mechanisms, thereby enabling sustainable underground monitoring in WPUCNs.
title UAV-Enabled Wireless-Powered Underground Communication Networks: A Novel Time Allocation Approach
topic Networking and Internet Architecture
Systems and Control
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2507.14627