Optimal Packet Scheduling on an Energy Harvesting Fading Channel

An offline transmission completion time minimization problem for an energy harvesting transmitter is considered. Specifically, optimal power and rate allocation for data packets arriving at arbitrary but known instances is studied. Communication takes place under a fading channel and transmitter is restricted with a limited energy storage capability. An optimal policy takes into account the channel state as well as the state of energy and data buffers. Moreover, the solution needs to strike a tradeoff between energy efficiency and delay. By exhibiting an equivalent convex problem, the unique optimal scheduling solution is obtained through an iterative convex optimization technique, sequential unconstrained minimization. The optimal solution under finite and infinite energy storage is examined on problem instances.