On the Energy Consumption of Relay Networks

This paper compares the amount of net energy used in the transmission segment of a multi-hop wireless relay network versus the single-hop system. It focuses on the computation of the power budget and is valid for half-duplex, full-duplex, downlink and uplink scenarios. The study shows that, contrary to a usual assumption today, the net amount of energy used by the multi-hop system may be higher than that of a single-hop under certain common conditions.