Exploring the boundaries of energy-efficient Wireless Mesh Networks with IEEE 802.11ba

Abstract

In traditional IoT applications, energy saving is essential while high bandwidth is not always required. However, a new wave of IoT applications exhibit stricter requirements in terms of bandwidth and latency. Broadband technologies like Wi-Fi could meet such requirements. Nevertheless, these technologies come with limitations: high energy consumption and limited coverage range. In order to address these two shortcomings, and based on the recent IEEE 802.11ba amendment, we propose a Wi-Fi-based mesh architecture where devices are outfitted with a supplementary Wake-up Radio (WuR) interface. According to our analytical and simulation studies, this design maintains latency figures comparable to conventional single-interface networks while significantly reducing energy consumption (by up to almost two orders of magnitude). Additionally, we verify via real device measurements that battery lifetime can be increased by as much as 500% with our approach.