A Fuzzy Control Quorum-Based Energy Conserving Protocol for IEEE 802.11 Ad Hoc Networks

In this paper, the authors propose a power-saving protocol, the fuzzy control quorum-based energy conserving protocol (FQEC), for IEEE 802.11 ad hoc networks. In the IEEE 802.11 power saving mode, hosts have to wake up every beacon interval to check if they have to remain awake in the remaining of that beacon interval. It is not an efficient power-saving solution since a host with little traffic still has to wake up every beacon interval. In this paper, the authors investigate the possibility to use a fuzzy control system to dynamically adjust the sleep duration in order to conserve more energy. In the fuzzy control system, the authors define the control rules according to the experienced latency of both incoming and outgoing packets. Such a definition exploits each host´s traffic load to obtain the best sleep/awake frequency. Simulation results verify that our FQEC indeed achieves better energy conservation.