Modulation and Coding Design for Simultaneous Wireless Information and Power Transfer

In order to satisfy the power demands of IoT devices and thus extend their lifespan, radio frequency (RF) signal aided wireless power transfer (WPT) is exploited for remote charging. Carefully coordinating both the WPT and wireless information transfer (WIT) yields an emerging research trend in simultaneous wireless information and power transfer (SWIPT). However, SWIPT systems designed by assuming Gaussian distributed input signals may suffer from a substantial performance degradation in practice, when the finite alphabetical input is considered. In this article, we will provide a design guide of coding controlled SWIPT and study the modulation design in both single-user and multi-user SWIPT systems. We hope this guide may push SWIPT a step closer from theory to practice.