POWER OPTIMIZATION IN HETEROGENOUS NETWORKS

• US 20180070285A1
• Filed: 12/18/2015
• Published: 03/08/2018
• Est. Priority Date: 12/19/2014
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Orange S.A.
• Original Assignee: Orange S.A.
• Inventors: Benko, John, Jain, Akshay, Yu, Dachuan
• Granted Patent: US 10,856,205 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• CPC Class Codes: H04B 17/373 Predicting channel quality or other radio frequency [RF] parameters
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/0888 Throughput
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/0894 Packet rate
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/10 Active monitoring, e.g. heartbeat, ping or trace-route
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 45/124 using a combination of metrics
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 45/125 based on throughput or bandwidth
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 28/0221 power availability or consumption
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 40/10 based on available power or energy
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 40/20 based on geographic position or location
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 52/46 in multi hop networks, e.g. wireless relay networks
• CPC Class Codes: Y02D 30/00 Reducing energy consumption in communication networks
• CPC Class Codes: Y02D 30/70 in wireless communication networks

Abstract

A method includes identifying multiple communication paths extending from a source device and for each path, determining a data rate, a power level used to communicate over at least a portion of the path and a power per data rate value by dividing the power level by the data rate. One of the multiple communication paths is selected such that the selected communication path has the lowest power per data rate value given quality of service requirements of an application. The power per data rate can be optimized from the device perspective as well as an overall network perspective. A message is then sent over the selected communication path.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

identifying multiple communication paths extending from a source device;

for each path, determining a data rate;

for each path, determining a power level used to communicate over at least a portion of the path;

for each path, determining a power to data rate efficiency value as a function of the determined power level and data rate; and

selecting one of the multiple communication paths such that the selected communication path has the lowest power to data rate efficiency value; and

sending a message over the selected communication path.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein determining a data rate for a communication path comprises sending a message across the communication path and measuring the data rate at which the message was sent.

3. The method of claim 2 wherein determining the power level used to communicate over at least a portion of the path comprises measuring the power used to send the test message across the portion of the communication path.

4. The method of claim 1 wherein determining a data rate comprises determining the data rate based on congestion on at least a portion of the communication path.

5. The method of claim 1 wherein determining the data rate comprises determining the data rate based on analog limitations of a communication channel associated with at least part of the communication path.

6. The method of claim 1 wherein the communication path comprises a series of links between a plurality of devices from the source device to a destination.

7. The method of claim 6 wherein at least one of the devices in the plurality of devices comprises a cell tower for a cellular network.

8. The method of claim 1 wherein identifying multiple communication paths comprises identifying at least one communication path from at least two different transmitters in the source device.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein the power to data rate efficiency value is a ratio of the power level divided by the data rate.

10. A mobile device comprising:

at least one transmitter configured to transmit signals, wherein a plurality of communication paths are available to the at least one transmitter; and

a processor configured to determine, for each of the plurality of communication paths, a power to data rate efficiency value as a function of a power level required to transmit signals along the communication path and a data rate at which data can be transmitted along the communication path, the processor further configured to select one communication path from the plurality of communication paths on which to transmit a signal based on the power to data rate efficiency values of the plurality of communication paths.

11. The mobile device of claim 10 wherein the power to data rate efficiency value for a communication path is obtained as a ratio of the power level divided by the data rate for said communication path.

12. The mobile device of claim 10 wherein the processor determines the ratio of a communication path by sending a test signal across the communication path and measuring the power level required to transmit the test signal and the data rate at which the test signal was sent.

13. The mobile device of claim 10 wherein the processor determines the ratio of the communication path by calculating a power level required based on a distance from the mobile device to a destination and a calculated data rate.

14. The mobile device of claim 10 wherein the processor further communicates the ratios of the communication paths to a server.

15. A communication network server comprising:

a processor executing instructions to perform steps comprising;

identifying a plurality of communication paths from a source to a destination;

for each communication path of the plurality, determining a power level used to transmit a signal over at least a portion of the path, determining a data rate for communicating along the communication path and calculating a power to data rate efficiency value as a function of the determined power level and data rate;

selecting a communication path with the lowest power to data rate efficiency value; and

directing a signal along the selected communication path.

16. The communication network server of claim 15, wherein each communication path comprises a plurality of links, the determining of a power level comprising determining a respective power level needed to transmit a signal over each link of the communication path, the determining of a data rate comprising determining a data rate for communicating from the source to the destination along each link, the power to data rate efficiency value for a communication path being a function of the determined power levels and data rates.

17. The communication network server of claim 16 wherein the power to data rate efficiency value is a function of the sum of the power levels for each link and the slowest data rate value of any link in the communication path.

18. The communication network server of claim 17 wherein determining the data rate comprises determining the data rate from a data rate for each link.

19. The communication network server of claim 18 wherein determining the data rate further comprises selecting the slowest data rate of the links along a communication path as the data rate for communicating from the source to the destination along the communication path.

20. A non-transitory computer-readable medium having computer-executable instructions stored thereon that when executed by a processor cause the processor to perform acts comprising:

identifying multiple communication paths extending from a source device;

for each path, determining a data rate;

for each path, determining a power level used to communicate over at least a portion of the path;

for each path, determining a power to data rate efficiency value as a function of the determined power level and data rate; and

selecting one of the multiple communication paths such that the selected communication path has the lowest power to data rate efficiency value; and

sending a message over the selected communication path.