Exploiting Distributed IRSs for Enabling SWIPT

In this letter, the feasibility of boosting the performance of simultaneous wireless information and power transfer (SWIPT) via distributed intelligent reflecting surfaces (IRSs) is investigated. The performance bounds of a distributed IRSs-assisted SWIPT set-up are derived by adopting practically viable discrete phase-shifts for time-switching and power-splitting protocols with non-linear energy harvesting circuitry. The optimal received signal power and optimal signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) are derived by controlling the phase-shifts of passive reflectors at each IRS. Thereby, closed-form approximations/bounds for the achievable rate, harvested energy, and rate-energy trade-off are derived for Nakagami-m fading. The accuracy of our analysis is validated by presenting a rigorous set of Monte-Carlo simulations. Our numerical results reveal that the distributed IRSs-assisted communication set-ups can boost the performance of SWIPT in the next-generation wireless systems.