IRS-assisted Energy-Efficient IoT Communication in UAV-based Smart Agriculture
IEEE Transactions on Consumer Electronics, 2026 (SCI-Expanded, Scopus)
- Yayın Türü: Makale / Tam Makale
- Basım Tarihi: 2026
- Doi Numarası: 10.1109/tce.2026.3721863
- Dergi Adı: IEEE Transactions on Consumer Electronics
- Derginin Tarandığı İndeksler: Science Citation Index Expanded (SCI-EXPANDED), Scopus, Aerospace Database, Compendex, INSPEC, Materials Science & Engineering Collection (ProQuest), Technology Collection (ProQuest)
- Anahtar Kelimeler: energy-efficient connectivity, intelligent reconfigurable surfaces, Internet of things, Smart agriculture
- İstanbul Gelişim Üniversitesi Adresli: Evet
Özet
The upcoming sixth-generation (6G) networks are expected to support massive Internet of Things (IoT) deployments with stringent coverage and energy-efficiency requirements. In smart agriculture, low-power IoT sensors deployed across orchards and large farmlands often suffer from severe signal attenuation and blockages caused by tree canopies, uneven terrain, and sparse infrastructure. To address these challenges, this paper proposes an intelligent reflecting surface (IRS)-assisted uplink IoT communication framework for UAV-based smart agriculture. The objective is to maximize the energy efficiency of IoT devices by jointly optimizing their transmit power and the IRS phase shifts under per-device rate constraints. To solve the resulting nonconvex fractional optimization problem, an alternating optimization framework is developed. For fixed IRS phases, the power allocation subproblem is solved using Dinkelbach’s fractional programming and a Karush–Kuhn–Tucker (KKT)-based capped–floored water-filling rule with bisection. For fixed transmit powers, the IRS phase-shift subproblem is handled using semidefinite relaxation (SDR), followed by rank-one extraction and unit-modulus projection, with optional projected-gradient refinement. Numerical results show that the proposed IRS-assisted design significantly improves achievable energy efficiency compared with the conventional no-IRS baseline, highlighting the potential of IRS-enabled 6G connectivity for sustainable smart farming.