On eliminating energy inefficiency of the packet overhearing problem in high traffic wireless LANs

Energy efficiency is known to be a critical issue of wireless devices. Our analysis reveals that the energy cost on overhearing unnecessary packet transmissions accounts for the majority of unnecessary energy consumption of wireless devices in high traffic wireless LANs. In this paper, we propose a novel SASD mechanism to eliminate the energy inefficiency of the packet overhearing problem. By adding a new header that carries some information in front of the normal packet frame at the PHY layer, SASD enables the wireless devices to discern the required information under the energy-saving downclocking mode so that the devices, whenever not addressed, can switch to the sleeping mode to save energy. Our simulation results show that SASD can effectively save the energy cost by avoiding the packet overhearing in high traffic wireless LANs.