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802.11 power-saving mode for mobile computing in Wi-Fi hotspots: Limitations, enhancements and open issues

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Abstract

Nowadays Wi-Fi is the most mature technology for wireless-Internet access. Despite the large (and ever increasing) diffusion of Wi-Fi hotspots, energy limitations of mobile devices are still an issue. To deal with this, the standard 802.11 includes a Power-Saving Mode (PSM), but not much attention has been devoted by the research community to understand its performance in depth. We think that this paper contributes to fill the gap. We focus on a typical Wi-Fi hotspot scenario, and assess the dependence of the PSM behavior on several key parameters such as the packet loss probability, the Round Trip Time, the number of users within the hotspot. We show that during traffic bursts PSM is able to save up to 90% of the energy spent when no energy management is used, and introduces a limited additional delay. Unfortunately, in the case of long inactivity periods between bursts, PSM is not the optimal solution for energy management. We thus propose a very simple Cross-Layer Energy Manager (XEM) that dynamically tunes its energy-saving strategy depending on the application behavior and key network parameters. XEM does not require any modification to the applications or to the 802.11 standard, and can thus be easily integrated in current Wi-Fi devices. Depending on the network traffic pattern, XEM reduces the energy consumption of an additional 20–96% with respect to the standard PSM.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Pervasive Computing & Networking Laboratory (PerLab), Department of Information Engineering, University of Pisa, Via Diotisalvi 2, 56122, Pisa, Italy

    G. Anastasi

  2. Pervasive Computing & Networking Laboratory (PerLab), CNR - IIT Institute, Via G. Moruzzi, 1, 56124, Pisa, Italy

    M. Conti, E. Gregori & A. Passarella

Authors
  1. G. Anastasi
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  2. M. Conti
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  3. E. Gregori
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  4. A. Passarella
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to A. Passarella.

Additional information

This work has been carried out while A. Passarella was with the Department of Information Engineering of the University of Pisa.

Giuseppe Anastasi is an associate professor of Computer Engineering at the Department of Information Engineering of the University of Pisa, Italy. He received the Laurea (cum laude) degree in Electrical Engineering, and the Ph.D. degree in Computer Engineering, both from the University of Pisa, in 1990 and 1995, respectively. His research interests include mobile and pervasive computing, ad hoc and sensor networks, and power management. He is a co-editor of the book Advanced Lectures in Networking (LNCS 2497, Springer, 2002), and has published more than 60 papers in the area of computer networking and pervasive computing, both in international journals and conference proceedings. He is a member of the editorial board of the Journal of Ubiquitous Computing and Intelligence (JUCI), and is currently serving as Vice Program Co-Chair for the IEEE MASS 2007 conference. He has served as general chair for IEEE WoWMoM 2005, Workshops Chair for IEEE PerCom 2006 and IEEE WoWMoM 2006, and program chair for several international workshops. He has also served on the Technical Program Committee of many international conferences. He is a member of the IEEE Computer Society.

Marco Conti is a research director at IIT, an institute of the Italian National Research Council (CNR). He co-authored the book “Metropolitan Area Networks” (Springer, 1997) and is co-editor of the book “Mobile Ad Hoc Networking” (IEEE-Wiley 2004). He published in journals and conference proceedings more than 180 research papers related to design, modeling, and performance evaluation of computer-network architectures and protocols. He served as TPC chair of IEEE PerCom 2006, and of the IFIP-TC6 Conferences “Networking2002” and “PWC2003”, and as TPC co-chair of ACM WoWMoM 2002, WiOpt ’04, IEEE WoWMoM2005, and ACM MobiHoc2006. He served as general co-chair of IEEE WoWMoM 2006 and as general chair of ACM REALMAN 2006. Currently, he is serving as general chair of IEEE MASS 2007. He is Associate Editor of Pervasive and Mobile Computing Journal, and he is on the editorial board of: IEEE Transactions on Mobile Computing, Ad Hoc Networks journal and Wireless Ad Hoc and Sensor Networks: An International Journal.

Enrico Gregori received the Laurea in electronic engineering from the University of Pisa in 1980. In 1981 he joined the Italian National Research Council (CNR) where he is currently a CNR research director. He is currently the deputy director of the CNR institute for Informatics and Telematics (IIT). In 1986 he held a visiting position in the IBM research center in Zurich working on network software engineering and on heterogeneous networking. He has contributed to several national and international projects on computer networking. He has authored more than 100 papers in the area of computer networks and has published in international journals and conference proceedings and is co-author of the book “Metropolitan Area Networks” (Springer, London 1997). He was the General Chair of the IFIP TC6 conferences: Networking2002and PWC2003 (Personal Wireless Communications) and IEEE Pervasive Computing and Communication (PERCOM) 2006. He served as guest editor for the Networking2002 journal special issues on: Performance Evaluation, Cluster Computing and ACM/Kluwer Wireless Networks Journals. He is a member of the board of directors of the Create-Net association, an association with several Universities and research centers that is fostering research on networking at European level. He is on the editorial board of the Cluster Computing, of the Computer Networks and of the Wireless Networks Journals. His current research interests include: Ad hoc networks, Sensor networks, Wireless LANs, Quality of service in packet-switching networks, Evolution of TCP/IP protocols.

Andrea Passarella is a Researcher at the IIT Institute of the National Research Council (CNR), Italy. Before joining IIT, he was a Research Associate at the Computer Laboratory of the University of Cambridge, UK. He received the Ph.D. and M.S. Degrees in Computer Engineering, both from the University of Pisa, Italy, in 2005 and 2001, respectively. His current research is mostly on opportunistic and delay-tolerant networking. More in general, he works on ad hoc and sensor networks, specifically on p2p systems, multicasting, transport protocols, and energy-efficient protocols. His research interests also include mesh networks and wireless access to the Internet. He is Co-Editor of the book “Multi-hop Ad hoc Networks: From Theory to Reality” (Nova Science, 2007). He was TPC Vice-Chair for IEEE REALMAN 2005, ACM REALMAN 2006, and IEEE MDC 2006. He served and is currently serving in the TPC of several international conferences, including IEEE PerCom 2006/07 and IEEE WoWMoM 2006/07, and workshops. He is an Associate Technical Editor for IEEE Communications Magazine. He is a member of ACM SIGMOBILE.

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Anastasi, G., Conti, M., Gregori, E. et al. 802.11 power-saving mode for mobile computing in Wi-Fi hotspots: Limitations, enhancements and open issues. Wireless Netw 14, 745–768 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11276-006-0010-9

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