Power-efficient radio configuration in fixed broadband wireless networks

In this work, we investigate on determining feasible radio configurations in fixed broadband wireless networks, focusing on power efficiency. Under this scenario, a power-efficient configuration can be characterized by a modulation constellation size and a transmission power level. Every link holds a set of power-efficient configurations, each of them associating a capacity with its energy cost. We introduce a joint optimization of data routing and radio configuration that minimizes the total energy consumption while handling all the traffic requirements simultaneously. An exact mathematical formulation of the problem is presented. It relies on a minimum cost multicommodity flow with step increasing cost functions, which is very hard to optimize. We then propose a piecewise linear convex function, obtained by linear interpolation of power-efficient points, that provides a good approximation of the energy consumption on the links, and present a relaxation of the previous formulation that exploits the convexity of the cost functions. This yields lower bounds on the total energy expenditure, and finally heuristic algorithms based on the fractional optimum are employed to produce feasible configuration solutions. Our models are validated through extensive experiments that are reported and discussed. The results testify the potentialities behind this novel approach.