Protocol Design for Irregular Repetition Slotted ALOHA With Energy Harvesting to Maintain Information Freshness

Abstract: We investigate an internet-of-things system where energy-harvesting devices send status updates to a common receiver using the irregular repetition slotted ALOHA (IRSA) protocol. Energy shortages in these devices may lead to transmission failures that are unknown to the receiver, disrupting the decoding process. To address this issue, we propose a method for the receiver to perfectly identify such failures. Furthermore, we optimize the degree distribution of the protocol to enhance the freshness of the status updates. Our optimized degree distribution mitigates the adverse effects of potential transmission failures. Numerical results demonstrate that, despite energy-harvesting constraints, IRSA can achieve a level of information freshness comparable to systems with unlimited energy.