Energy‐efficient wireless ATM design

Energy efficiency is an important issue for mobile computers since they must rely on their batteries. We present an architecture for wireless ATM and a novel MAC protocol that achieves a good energy efficiency of the wireless interface of the mobile and provides QoS support for diverse traffic types. The scheduler of the base station is responsible for providing the required QoS to connections on the wireless link and to minimize the amount of energy spent by the mobile. The main principles used are to avoid unsuccessful actions, to minimize the number of transitions, and to synchronize the mobile and the base station. In the protocol the actions of the mobile are minimized. The base station with plenty of energy performs actions in courtesy of the mobile. We have paid much attention in reducing the cost for a mobile of just being connected. The protocol is able to provide near-optimal energy efficiency (i.e., energy is spent for the actual transfer only) for a mobile within the constraints of the QoS of all connections in a cell, and only requires a small overhead.