Energy efficient transmission scheduling for delay constrained wireless networks

In this paper, we address the problem of energy efficient packet scheduling in a wireless environment. We consider a wireless transmitter which is limited by its finite battery resource. Our objective is to design a transmission schedule that maximizes battery lifetime subject to some delay constraints. To achieve this, we exploit two previously unconnected ideas: (i) channel coding can be used to conserve energy by transmitting at reduced power levels over longer durations; (ii) electro-chemical mechanisms in batteries allow them to recover energy during idle periods. While the first idea favors extending transmission durations, the second idea requires the transmitter to be idle to allow for recovery. In other words, bursty packet transmissions interspersed with idle periods extend battery life. Therefore, a strategy which is based entirely on either one or the other idea is not optimal. We provide a framework to merge the two ideas. We consider two kinds of delay constraints, one a deadline constraint and the other an average delay constraint and show that energy aware scheduling strategies for both these scenarios can result in significant energy savings.