Recent advances on wireless energy transfer (WET) make it a promising solution for powering future Internet-of-Things (IoT) devices enabled by the upcoming sixth-generation (6G) era. The main architectures, challenges and techniques for efficient and scalable wireless powering are overviewed in this article. Candidates enablers, such as energy beamforming (EB), distributed antenna systems (DASs), advances on devices' hardware and programmable medium, new spectrum opportunities, resource scheduling, and distributed ledger technology are outlined. Special emphasis is placed on discussing the suitability of channel state information (CSI)-limited/free strategies when powering simultaneously a massive number of devices. The benefits from combining DAS and EB, and from using average CSI whenever available, are numerically illustrated. The pros and cons of the state-of-the-art CSI-free WET techniques in ultralow power setups are thoroughly revised, and some possible future enhancements are outlined. Finally, key research directions toward realizing WET-enabled massive IoT networks in the 6G era are identified and discussed in detail.

We analyze and optimize a wireless system with energy transfer in the downlink and information transfer in the uplink, under quasi-static Nakagami-m fading. We consider ultrareliable communication scenarios representative of the fifth generation of wireless systems, with strict error and latency requirements. The error probability and delay are investigated, and an approximation for the former is given and validated through simulations. The numerical results demonstrate that there are optimum numbers of channels uses for both energy and information transfer for a given message length.

We analyze a wireless communication system with finite block length and finite battery energy, under quasi-static Nakagami-m fading. Wireless energy transfer is carried out in the downlink while information transfer occurs in the uplink. Transmission strategies for scenarios with/without energy accumulation between transmission rounds are characterized in terms of error probability and energy consumption. A power control protocol for the energy accumulation scenario is proposed and results show the enormous impact on improving the system performance, in terms of error probability and energy consumption. The numerical results corroborate the existence and uniqueness of an optimum target error probability, while showing that a relatively small battery could be a limiting factor for some setups, especially when using the energy accumulation strategy.

We analyze a cooperative wireless communication system with finite block length and finite battery energy, under quasi-static Rayleigh fading. Source and relay nodes are powered by a wireless energy transfer (WET) process, while using the harvested energy to feed their circuits, send pilot signals to estimate channels at receivers, and for wireless information transmission (WIT). Other power consumption sources beyond data transmission power are considered. The error probability is investigated under perfect/imperfect channel state information (CSI), while reaching accurate closed-form approximations in ideal direct communication system setups. We consider ultra-reliable communication (URC) scenarios under discussion for the next fifth-generation (5G) of wireless systems. The numerical results show the existence of an optimum pilot transmit power for channel estimation, which increases with the harvested energy. We also show the importance of cooperation, even taking into account the multiplexing loss, in order to meet the error and latency constraints of the URC systems.

The rendezvous process allows cognitive users to find an available channel and establish a communication link. The implementation of rendezvous strategies to minimize the time to rendezvous (TTR) is a major challenge in this context. In this paper we present a comprehensive analysis of the benefits of periodic channel hopping sequences in the rendezvous process. We also introduce a novel short-sequence-based (SSB) rendezvous algorithm which works under symmetric and asymmetric channel models. Theoretical analysis and simulations show that the proposed SSB outperforms other recently developed rendezvous protocols in terms of expected TTR and maximum TTR.

Location awareness allows to define a concurrent transmission region where a primary and a secondary networks can coexist. We investigate the impact of joint rate and power control on the performance of a cognitive radio ad hoc network overlaying a primary system. The proposed strategies adequately adjust the secondary user transmit power to increase the concurrent transmission probability while respecting a given constraint on the achievable primary rate. Two power control strategies are described: Rate-Efficient Power Control to maximize the secondary capacity, and Energy-Efficient Power Control to minimize the secondary energy consumption. Numerical results show that the proposed schemes expand the concurrent transmission region and that it is possible to increase the average rate and save energy.