Improving neighborhood aware power saving mechanism using carrier sensing for dynamic advertising windows

Extending system lifespan by managing power on mobile nodes is critical and primordial in wireless ad hoc networks. Recent work has shown that, by appropriately powering off nodes, energy may be significantly saved, especially when node density is high. Such approaches rely on the selection of a virtual backbone of the topology to forward ongoing traffic, coupled with functions to reorganize (manually or periodically) such a backbone for load balancing purposes. The common drawback of such schemes is the need to involve periodic message exchanges to establish synchronization and announcement of the traffic. This paper presents UTA-DCS, a neighborhood and traffic aware power saving mechanism that dynamically adjusts the announcement period in order to optimize its value and thus conserve energy. UTA-DCS combines the functionalities of two power saving mechanisms, UTA-PSM and DCS-ATIM to ensure the best performances in all traffic loads. Simulation results testified to the superiority of UTA-DCS over PSM and DCS-ATIM in ensuring greater power saving, higher throughput and lower delay.