A power-aware distributed Wi-Fi access point scheduling algorithm

Smartphone has implemented several power saving strategies for its Wi-Fi radio as the Wi-fi radio consumes significant amount of energy. Previously, Wi-Fi energy saving mechanisms have been designed in such a way that add unfairness to the Wi-Fi network. Prime reasons of the unfairness are retransmissions due to collisions in the channel, unnecessary waiting in high power mode and hidden terminals in the vicinity. We propose PowerNap an improved distributed energy efficient access point (AP) scheduling algorithm that addresses the above issues. PowerNap schedules the APs to scale down the overlapping among the transmission time of APs in the same vicinity. This trims out the energy consumption of Smartphone and also avoids unfairness. PowerNap schedules the APs in a weighted manner and also supports dynamic rescheduling. The proposed algorithm could be implemented via software installation in APs. Implementation of the PowerNap prototype improves Smartphone battery life upto 49--60%.