Full-Duplex Energy-Harvesting in Energy-Constrained Networks Over $\alpha$–Lomax Fading Channels

Simultaneous wireless information and power transfer (SWIPT) is a promising technology to prolong the lifetime of energy-constrained networks by enabling wireless nodes to harvest man-made RF signals. Unlike all studies in the open literature, this paper investigates the performance of a dual-hop full-duplex decode-and-forward relay network over <tex xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">$\alpha$</tex>–Lomax fading channels. The relay node is energy-constrained and relies entirely on harvesting energy from the signal transmitted by the source. The system performance is evaluated in terms of ergodic outage probability. In this regard, the cumulative distribution function of the product of two <tex xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">$\alpha$</tex>–Lomax random variables (RVs) is derived. This was then employed to derive a closed-form analytical expression for the ergodic outage probability. Monte-Carlo simulations are also provided throughout to verify the accuracy of the analysis. The derived expression is used to investigate the impact of various system parameters on the performance. The results indicated that a good selection of the energy harvesting time is crucial to minimize the ergodic outage probability.