The trade-off between SINR and total power consumption in dual-mode systems

Due to incorporating the flexibility of ad-hoc networks, overlaying multihop networks on a cellular structure has recently become more and more attractive for researchers. The potential advantages of dual-mode systems include reduction in total power consumption and the possibility of extending capacity via path diversity. In addition, the self-organizing characteristic of the network may reduce the need for network planning and base station (BS) infrastructure. However, costs are the increased complexity, which will impact the design and performance of dual-mode systems. Thus, the decision of each means and option is a trade-off between the customer requirements and operator capability, the signaling load, delay, required level of modification, implementation complexity and cost, the achievable signal-to-interference-and-noise ratio (SINR) and total power consumption, and so on. This paper highlights the last two aspects and describes initial simulations that we have performed to investigate the impact of routing on SINR and power utilization in dual-mode systems utilizing code division multiple access (CDMA). Our aim is to maximize the value of SINR and minimize the total power consumption at the same time. A cost function consists of SINR and total power is defined, and appropriate parameters are found through simulations to minimize the cost in different simulation environments.