India-UK Advanced Technology Centre (IU-ATC) of Excellence in Next Generation Networks Systems and Services

Lead Research Organisation: University of St Andrews
Department Name: Computer Science

Abstract

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Description The key practical science output of the work has been the examination of the operation, performance and en- ergy efficiency of IEEE 802.11 wireless LAN (WLAN) technology (aka WiFi) for wireless access to Internet services. The key practical engineering output has been the production of an opensource WLAN testbed, with measurement capability, using off-the- shelf equipment. The testbed supports all the commer- cially available variants of IEEE 802.11 (a, b, g and n), in the both the 2.4GHz and 5GHz ISM bands. Our testbed also includes scripts to provide emulations of Voice of IP (VoIP) and Video over IP (ViIP) traffic profiles. Documentation and instructions on operation of the testbed and scripts are included.

Our other output examines the energy efficiency of WLAN applications. The novelty compared to the work of others has two foci:
1. to consider the system level viewpoint, and exam- ine system level energy usage.
2. to relate energy usage to other performance metrics widely used for systems and network management.
The first focus helps us to understand the overall im- pact on WLAN devices and systems when considering energy usage and gain insight into where energy effi-
ciency gains can be made on a system-wide basis. The second focus helps as to understand how both existing (legacy) applications and new applications may be able to use smart adaptation techniques to make energy ef- ficiency gains through software configuration, in com- plement to, but independently of, new energy efficient hardware. We have shown the potential for energy ef- ficiency gains of two orders of magnitude on a system wide basis. We have demonstrated these effects in a repeatable manner on our WLAN testbed.
Exploitation Route Provides insight into operation an d performance of a communication technology that is increasing in its use. Academia and industry will be able to take our performance evaluations in applying these technologies, as well as designing and building evolutions of these technologies.
Sectors Aerospace, Defence and Marine,Digital/Communication/Information Technologies (including Software),Electronics,Energy
URL http://www.iu-atc.com/
 
Description (The findings were used to inform work going into EP/J016756/1.) The findings were also of interest to our industry partners in the project, but it is not clear how they were used internally by the partners.
First Year Of Impact 2012
Sector Digital/Communication/Information Technologies (including Software)
 
Description University of St Andrews
Amount £320,389 (GBP)
Funding ID EP/J016756/1 
Organisation Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) 
Sector Public
Country United Kingdom
Start 06/2012 
End 11/2014