Characterize the energy consumption of ieee 802.11 wlan interfaces

Abstract

Over the past two decades the wireless communications market has experienced an explosive growth, and wireless technology has become an integrated part of our lives providing services from telephony to data transfer to sensing and monitoring applications. Business networks today are evolving to support people who are in movement. Employees and employers, students and faculty, government agents and those they serve, sports fans and shoppers, all are mobile and many of them are ”connected”. This is the vision of mobility- an environment where people can take their connection to the network along with them on the road. But mobile devices are dependent on battery power, it is important to minimize their energy consumption, while providing the required quality of experience. The energy consumption of a network interface can be significant, especially for smaller devices. The network interface is one of the main system components from the battery consumption standpoint. Hence, the energy used by the network interface to successfully transmit a message is an important figure for a mobile computer.