Bartendr

TLDR

Cellular radios consume more power and suffer reduced data rate when the signal is weak. The study aims to enable energy savings by having applications preferentially communicate during strong signal periods, either by deferring non‑urgent traffic or advancing scheduled transmissions. This is achieved by predicting signal strength at low energy cost so that applications can schedule communications to coincide with strong signal windows. Measurements show that communication energy per bit can be up to six times higher when the signal is weak compared to when it is strong.

Abstract

Cellular radios consume more power and suffer reduced data rate when the signal is weak. According to our measurements, the communication energy per bit can be as much as 6x higher when the signal is weak than when it is strong. To realize energy savings, applications must preferentially communicate when the signal is strong, either by deferring non-urgent communication or by advancing anticipated communication to coincide with periods of strong signal. Allowing applications to perform such scheduling requires predicting signal strength, so that opportunities for energy-efficient communication can be anticipated. Furthermore, such prediction must be performed at little energy cost.