Performance analysis of a tunable cost function based WLAN energy efficient packet transmission technique

This paper propose a new algorithm to adapt the transmission parameters of the IEEE 802.11 network devices to optimize the energy consumption of a WLAN transmitter under different Quality of Service (QoS) constraints. The novelty of the proposed algorithm is that the transmission data rate is mapped based on the proposed tunable cost function to optimize the energy requirements of a transmitter. The algorithm is adaptive in nature where parameters of the cost function can be adapted to match the transmission data rate based on network load conditions. In addition to that, to achieve the energy efficiency objective, different threshold criteria are proposed for the adaptive data rate mapping. Performance analysis is carried out to study the effects of tunable parameters of the cost function to enhance energy efficiency and QoS. By using an OPNET based simulation model, we evaluate the performance improvement that can be achieved when the proposed mechanism is implemented in a WLAN. Performance of the proposed algorithm is also compared with two well established algorithms such as the First Rate CDRPA and the Miser. The results show that the proposed algorithm achieve transmission energy saving as large as 58% and 20% compared to the Rate First CDRPA and Miser respectively, while maintaining required performance in terms of packet delay and packet loss.