CIF:Small:Collaborative Research:Minimum Energy Communications in Wireless Networks

University Of Hawaii, Honolulu

Investigators

Abstract

This project aims to answer a fundamental question in wireless networking: what is the energy needed to transmit one bit of information over a wireless network? And the related question: how can practical networks be designed to come close to this limit? The motivation is to save energy. It is evident that there is a strong current interest in energy conservation. Currently it is estimated that consumer electronics account for 11% of total residential electricity consumption in the US. While this is not all used on communications, as most devices have wireless capability, wireless communications could account for a significant part of this energy consumption. Clearly, if this energy consumption can be cut in half, the saving is significant. In fact, preliminary results show that by optimizing the signaling, energy consumption in wireless communications can be reduced much more than 50%. As is well known, there are few networks where the exact Shannon capacity has been found. The research therefore approaches the theoretical part of this problem in different ways. For some networks, the minimum energy per bit can be found even if the exact capacity cannot be found. When the exact minimum energy per bit cannot be found, approximations to the minimum energy per bit are sought in the form of a figure within a certain number of dB that is universal over a certain class of networks. A key part of the research will be to look at networks with correlated information and distortion. Joint source-channel coding can reduce the energy consumption beyond what a separate approach can provide. The theoretical approach will be combined with practical coding methods.