An intelligent power save mode mechanism for IEEE 802.11 WLAN

Maximizing the run-time of battery-limited mobile devices is contingent on efficient energy management at the mobile device wireless interface. IEEE 802.11 wireless local area network (WLAN) power save mode (PSM) minimizes the mobile device energy consumption by allowing the device to de-activate its wireless interface periodically while the access point (AP) stores its incoming packets. Further increase in energy conservation occurs through the proposed decision-making algorithm, Intelligent-PSM (IPSM), that determines dynamic, as opposed to fixed, activation times based on the state of the mobile user. IPSM can be implemented with minimal change to the standard PSM transmission scheme. Simulation results show that with a maximum allowable packet delay of 1 second and limited AP buffering capacity, energy conservation of up to about 37% compared to standard PSM can be achieved.