Two-stage base station sleeping scheme for green cellular networks

In this paper, we propose a two-stage base station (BS) sleeping scheme to save energy consumption in cellular networks. The BS sleeping mode is divided into a light sleeping stage and a deep sleeping stage according to whether there is a user in the BS's coverage. In the light sleeping stage, a BS will retain its coverage and frequently switch between the on state and the doze state according to the service characteristics. While in the deep sleeping stage analysis, the BS will shut down its coverage, and neighbor BSs will patch the coverage hole. Several closed-form formulas are derived to demonstrate the power consumption in each sleeping stage and the stage switching conditions are discussed to minimize the average power consumption. The average traffic delay caused by BS sleeping and the average deep sleeping rate under a given traffic load have also been studied. In addition, it is shown that BS sleeping is not always possible because of the limited quality of service (QoS) requirements. Simulation results show that the proposed scheme can effectively reduce the average BS power consumption, at the cost of some extra traffic delay. In summary, our proposed framework provides an essential understanding of the design of future green networks that aim to take full advantage of different stages of BS sleeping to obtain the best energy efficiency.