Energy-efficient TDMA medium access control protocol scheduling

In this paper we study the energy efficiency and channel efficiency of TDMA MAC protocol scheduling mechanisms. Most MAC protocols are based on phase grouping that basically has three phases in a frame: uplink, downlink and reservation. We propose a new mechanism in which we have multiple uplink and downlink phases. These phases are grouped per mobile in a frame. Although this has a negative effect on the capacity of the channel, it allows the mobile to turn the power off from the wireless interface for a longer period. We made this choice since in a mobile multimedia environment it is more important that connections have a certain QoS, than highest possible bandwidth. We present an analysis in which these two basic mechanisms are compared in respect to bandwidth efficiency and energy efficiency. We have developed and implemented a novel MAC protocol based on mobile grouping that provides Quality of Service (QoS) support for diverse traffic types