The Impact of Wakeup Schedule Distribution in Asynchronous Power Save Protocols on the Performance of Multihop Wireless Networks

By definition, the operation of an asynchronous power save protocol permits an arbitrary distribution of nodes' wakeup schedules. This wakeup schedule distribution creates an uncoordinated pattern of times at which nodes attempt to transmit. Intuitively, we would expect that some patterns are more (or less) favorable than others for a given traffic pattern. We investigate the impact of this wakeup pattern on network capacity and present simulation data showing that the capacity associated with the best wakeup patterns is significantly larger than that of the worst. This result not only gives insight to the behavior of such protocols, but also acts as a feasibility study showing the potential benefit of mechanisms by which nodes adapt their wakeup schedules to obtain improved performance.