Energy-aware scheduling with probabilistic deadline constraints in wireless networks

In a shared-medium wireless network, an effective technique that allows for a tradeoff of message transmission time for energy savings is to transmit messages over multiple smaller hops as opposed to using the long direct source-destination hop. In this context, we address the problem of scheduling messages with probabilistic deadline constraints. Unlike most other works in this area, we consider the practical aspects of the erroneous channel condition and the receiver energy consumption while solving the scheduling problem. Our solution is three fold – first we prove that the problem is NP-hard. We then present an Integer Linear Program (ILP) formulation for the scheduling problem. Finally, we present efficient heuristic scheduling algorithms which minimize the energy consumption while providing the required guarantees. Our simulation studies show that the proposed heuristic algorithms achieve energy savings comparable to that obtained using the linear programming methodology under practical channel conditions. 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.