Spectral Efficiency and Energy Harvesting in Multi-cell SLIPT Systems

In this paper, we study the performance of simultaneous lightwave information and power transfer (SLIPT) systems in a multi-cell indoor scenario. We investigate the energy harvesting and data rate performance of multiple users while meeting the lighting constraints. To this end, we develop optimization frameworks that tune the parameters of transmitters or receivers to improve the SLIPT system performance. Firstly, we model the relationship between tunable lens-based optical receivers concentrator gain and their fields of view. Next, we develop algorithms to maximize the spectral efficiency (SE) considering per-user minimum harvested energy requirements and lightning constraints by controlling the average light emitting diode (LED) excitation current or tuning the optical receivers’ fields of view. Then, we study the joint system performance limits of SE and total harvested energy. Towards this aim, we formulate multi-objective optimization problems and propose algorithms to find the best SE - energy harvesting tradeoff for both designing strategies. Finally, we present some extensive simulations to explore the benefits of the proposed algorithms comparing with basic benchmarks. Besides, we monitor the effect of changing several system parameters on the two objectives and the behavior of the inherent trade-off between them under both transmitter and receiver sides designing strategies.