Energy Efficiency of Cooperative Base Station Sleep Scheduling for Vehicular Networks

This paper investigates the energy efficiency of base station sleep scheduling strategies in 1-D infrastructure-based wireless communication networks formed by vehicles traveling on a highway. In certain scenarios, vehicular speeds and locations can be measured with a high degree of accuracy, and this information can be exploited to reduce the energy consumption of base stations. This paper considers cooperative base station scheduling strategies where base stations can switch between sleep and active modes to reduce the average energy consumption, while guaranteeing the connectivity of every vehicle. Analytical results on the expected amount of energy saving for a base stations are derived, which reveals for the first time the existence of a threshold parameter, determined by both the vehicular density and mobility, below which base stations can switch off and save energy, but above which no energy saving can be achieved.