Energy modeling and optimization through joint packet size analysis of BSN and WiFi networks

In this paper, we propose to optimize energy consumption in heterogeneous wireless networks through joint packet size optimization. Specifically, we consider a two-hop data communication system composed of a body sensor network (BSN) and a WiFi network. Within the system, we formulate an energy consumption optimization problem with the constraints of both throughput and time delay. Mathematically, we convert this problem into a geometric programming (GP) problem, which is then numerically solved. The solutions can be used by both the BSN and the WiFi network to dynamically change their packets´ payload sizes based on their current packet delivery ratios (PDRs). Since the PDRs are time-varying, we tabulate an offline payload size lookup table for online packet size selection using PDRs as indices. Finally, we collect PDRs from a deployed two-hop BSN-WiFi network and simulate the energy consumption. The performance evaluation results show that our solution achieves up to 70% energy savings compared with solutions that use fixed packet sizes.