Low power link and access protocols for wireless multimedia networks

Energy efficiency is a critical issue in wireless networks since the battery life of mobile terminals is limited to only a few hours. One of the goals of protocol development for wireless networks should be power efficiency in mobile terminals. This paper addresses the design of link level and medium access protocols (MACs) for this environment, with the objective of power conservation, in addition to the traditional design goals of maximizing channel utilization and minimizing latency. We consider a local area wireless asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) network supporting virtual circuits and multimedia traffic. A taxonomy of access protocols with respect to power conservation is presented. A comparison of access protocols for wireless networks from a power management perspective is presented. Access protocols such as 802.11, DSA++, and others are considered in the comparison.