Spectrum Based Power Management for Congested IoT Networks

Sensors (Basel). 2021 Apr 10;21(8):2681. doi: 10.3390/s21082681.

Abstract

With constantly increasing demand in connected society Internet of Things (IoT) network is frequently becoming congested. IoT sensor devices lose more power while transmitting data through congested IoT networks. Currently, in most scenarios, the distributed IoT devices in use have no effective spectrum based power management, and have no guarantee of a long term battery life while transmitting data through congested IoT networks. This puts user information at risk, which could lead to loss of important information in communication. In this paper, we studied the extra power consumed due to retransmission of IoT data packet and bad communication channel management in a congested IoT network. We propose a spectrum based power management solution that scans channel conditions when needed and utilizes the lowest congested channel for IoT packet routing. It also effectively measured power consumed in idle, connected, paging and synchronization status of a standard IoT device in a congested IoT network. In our proposed solution, a Freescale Freedom Development Board (FREDEVPLA) is used for managing channel related parameters. While supervising the congestion level and coordinating channel allocation at the FREDEVPLA level, our system configures MAC and Physical layer of IoT devices such that it provides the outstanding power utilization based on the operating network in connected mode compared to the basic IoT standard. A model has been set up and tested using freescale launchpads. Test data show that battery life of IoT devices using proposed spectrum based power management increases by at least 30% more than non-spectrum based power management methods embedded within IoT devices itself. Finally, we compared our results with the basic IoT standard, IEEE802.15.4. Furthermore, the proposed system saves lot of memory for IoT devices, improves overall IoT network performance, and above all, decrease the risk of losing data packets in communication. The detail analysis in this paper also opens up multiple avenues for further research in future use of channel scanning by FREDEVPLA board.

Keywords: congested IoT; energy consumption; freescale launchpads; spectrum management.