Energy and Throughput Optimization of Wireless Mesh Networks With Continuous Power Control

Providing high data rates with minimum energy consumption is a crucial challenge for next generation wireless networks. There are few papers in the literature which combine these two issues. This paper focuses on multi-hop wireless mesh networks using a MAC layer based on Spatial Time Division Multiple Access (S-TDMA). We develop an optimization framework based on linear programming to study the relationship between throughput and energy consumption. Our contributions are two-fold. First, we formulate and solve, using column generation, a new MILP to compute offline energy-throughput tradeoff curve. We use a physical interference model where the nodes can perform continuous power control and can use a discrete set of data rates. Second, we highlight network engineering insights. We show, via numerical results, that power control and multi-rate functionalities allow optimal throughput to be reached, with lower energy consumption, using a mix of single hop and multi-hop routes.