A study on power saving using RTS/CTS handshake and burst transmission in wireless LAN

Recently, buttery-powered portable devices, which can use wireless LAN (WLAN), such as smart phones and tablet computers, are increasing. However, these devices consume more energy when using WLAN interfaces, and the battery lifetime is shorten. In order to reduce the power consumption of wireless stations, IEEE 802.11 specifies PSM (Power Saving Mode). However, PSM cannot save the energy optimally and it increases the transfer delay of packets severely. In this paper, to reduce the power consumption and suppress the transfer delay, we propose a power saving method using RTS/CTS handshake and burst transmission. Wireless stations save energy by sleeping for NAV (Network Allocation Vector) duration. In addition, we extend NAV duration with burst transmission. The number of packets transmitted per burst is decided so that the acceptable transfer delay of each packet is preserved. Finally, we show the effectiveness of the proposed method by computer simulation.