Power-Efficiency in Social-Aware D2D Communications

In this paper, we analyze the power consumption of a heterogeneous cellular network employing device-to-device (D2D) communication principles. An important part of the power consumption in the described network is caused by several active air interfaces. We use the recent models of 3GPP Long Term Evolution (LTE) and WiFi interfaces in analyzing the power consumption in different social-aware scenarios. In addition, we propose and use a new model for the 802.11n WiFi. We show that in many scenarios, relaying over the WiFi interface instead of using LTE is a preferred communication method, especially if the data rate requirement is not high.