This paper investigates the self-sustainability of an
overlay Internet of Things (IoT) network that relies on harvest-
ing energy from a downlink cellular network. Using stochastic
geometry and queueing theory, we develop a spatiotemporal
model to derive the steady state distribution of the number
of packets in the bu
ff
ers and energy levels in the batteries of
IoT devices given that the IoT and cellular communications
are allocated disjoint spectrum. Particularly, each IoT device
is modeled via a two-dimensional discrete-time Markov Chain
(DTMC) that jointly tracks the evolution of data bu
ff
er and
energy battery. In this context, stochastic geometry is used to
derive the energy generation at the batteries and the packet
transmission probability from bu
ff
ers taking into account the
mutual interference from other active IoT devices. To this end,
we show the Pareto-Frontiers of the sustainability region, which
defines the network parameters that ensure stable network
operation and finite packet delay. The results provide several
insights to design self-sustainable IoT networks.
Index Terms
—Spatiotemporal models, stochastic geometry,
queuing theory, energy harvesting, packet transmission success
probability, two-dimensional discrete-time Markov chain, sta-
bility conditions.