Power-Efficient Interface Selection Scheme using Paging of WWAN for WLAN in Heterogeneous Wireless Networks

Published

June 1, 2006

Author(s)

SuKyoung Lee, Nada T. Golmie

Abstract

In heterogeneous wireless networks, there have been several efforts aimed at having mobile devices equipped with multiple interfaces connect optimally to the access network that minimizes their power consumption. However, a study of existing schemes notes that in the idle state, a device with both a WLAN and a WWAN interface need to keep both interfaces ¿on¿ in order to receive periodic beacon messages from the AP (WLAN) and downlink control information from the base station (WWAN), resulting in significant power consumption. Therefore, in this paper, we propose a Power-efficient Communication Protocol that includes turning off the WLAN interface after it enters the idle state and using the existing paging of WWAN in order to wake up the WLAN interface when there is incoming long-lived multimedia data. This scheme is known to limit the power consumption, while at the same time make use of the paging channel in cellular networks. Further, we propose turning on the WLAN interface when the number of packets in the radio network controller's buffer reaches a certain threshold level in order to avoid repeatedly turning on and off WLAN interfaces, which consumes a significant amount of power. The tradeoffs between the power saving and the number of packets dropped at the buffer are investigated analytically through the study of an on/off traffic model. Simulation results for scenarios of interest are also provided.

Conference Location

, USA

Conference Title

IEEE International Conference on Communications

Pub Type

Conferences

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Keywords

power consumption, vertical handoff, WLAN, WWAN

Citation

Lee, S. and Golmie, N. (2006), Power-Efficient Interface Selection Scheme using Paging of WWAN for WLAN in Heterogeneous Wireless Networks, IEEE International Conference on Communications, , USA, [online], https://tsapps.nist.gov/publication/get_pdf.cfm?pub_id=150611 (Accessed October 16, 2024)