An energy consumption model for IEEE 802.11ah WLANs

One of the main challenges when designing a new self-powered Low Power Wide Area Network (LPWAN) technology is the vast operational dependence on its scarce energy resources. Therefore, a thorough identification and characterisation of the main energy consumption processes may lay the foundation for developing novel mechanisms aimed to make a more efficient use of devices' batteries, as well as for planning future network deployments. This paper provides an analytical energy consumption model for IEEE 802.11ah WLANs, which are expected to become one of the technology drivers in the future development of the Internet of Things (IoT). Given the network characteristics, the presented analytical model is able to provide an estimation of the average energy consumed by a station in the network, predicting its battery lifetime, based on a set of closed-form equations. In addition, this model can be used as a tool to understand the effects of the main network parameters on the network energy consumption, and to find the most suitable network configuration for a given application scenario.