Information delivery in large wireless networks with minimum energy expense

Energy efficient communication is a critical research problem in large-scale multihop wireless networks because of the limited energy supplies from batteries. We investigate in this paper the minimum energy required to fulfill various information delivery goals that correspond to the major communication paradigms in large wireless networks. We characterize the minimum energy requirement in two steps. We first derive the lower bounds on the energy consumption for all the possible solutions that deliver the information as required. We then design routing schemes that accomplish the information delivery tasks by using an amount of energy comparable to the lower bounds. Our work provides the fundamental understandings of energy needs and the efficient solutions for energy usages in major communication scenarios, which contribute to the rational dimensioning and wise utilization of the energy resources in large wireless networks.