Wireless access networks today consume 0.5 percent of the global energy. Rapidly growing demand for new services and ubiqutious connectivity, will further increase the energy consumption. This situation imposes a big challenge for mobile operators not only due to soaring cost of energy, but also increasing concern for global warming and sustainable development. This thesis focuses on the energy efficiency issue at the system level and studies how to incorporate energy-awareness into the design of future wireless access networks. The main contributions have been given in the areas of energy efficiency assessment, architectural and operational solutions, and total cost of investment analysis. The precise evaluation of energy efficiency is the first essential step to determine optimized solutions where metrics and models constitute the two key elements.We show that maximizing energy efficiency is not always equivalent to minimizing energy consumption which is one of the main reasons behind the presented contradictory and disputable conclusions in the literature. Further we indicate that in order to avoid the debatable directions, energy efficient network design problems should be formulated with well defined coverage and capacity requirements. Moreover, we propose novel backhaul power consumption models considering various technology and architectural options relevant for urban and rural environments and show that backhaul will potentially become a bottleneck in future ultra-high capacity wireless access networks. Second, we focus on clean-slate network deployment solutions satisfying different quality of service requirements in a more energy efficient manner. We identify that the ratio between idle- and transmit power dependent power consumption of a base station as well as the network capacity requirement are the two key parameters that affect the energy-optimum design.While results show that macro cellular systems are the most energy efficient solution for moderate average traffic density, Hetnet solutions prevail homogeneous deployment due to their ability to increase the capacity with a relatively lower energy consumption and thus enable significant energy savings in medium and high capacity demand regions. Moreover, we investigate the energy saving potential of short-term energy aware management approach, i.e., cell DTX, taking advantage of low resource utilization in the current networks arising from strict QoS requirements. With the help of developed novel quantitative method, we show that Cell DTX brings striking reduction in energy consumption and further savings are achievable if the networks are designed taking into account the fact that network deployment and operation are closely related. Finally, we develop a general framework for investigating the main cost elements and for evaluating the viability of energy efficient solutions.We first reveal the strong positive impact of spectrum on both energy and infrastructure cost and further indicate that applying sustainable solutions might also bring total cost reduction, but the viability highly depends on unit cost values as well as the indirect cost benefits of energy efficiency. Results obtained in this dissertation might provide guidelines for the network designers to achieve future high-capacity and sustainable wireless access networks. / <p>QC 20140505</p>

The need for energy efficiency in wireless communication is prevalent in all areas, but to an even greater extent in low-power and lossy networks that rely on resource-constrained devices. This degree project seeks to address the problem of modelling the battery lifetime of a duty-cycled node, participating in a wireless sensor network that is typically used in smart home and building applications. Modelling in MATLAB combined with experimentation are employed to predict the life expectancy and to validate using a hardware implementation. Various scenarios including sleepy end devices in a wireless sensor network are modelled and validated; these range from variable wake-up frequency and packet payload transmission to increasing network contention with the addition of network load. A comprehensive analysis of the main factors contributing to wasteful energy usage is provided in this thesis project, and it can be concluded that the model can estimate the battery lifetime under different testing scenarios with an error less than 5 %. / Det finns ett stort behov av energieffektivitet inom trådlös kommunikation, särskilt inom nätverk med bortfall och låg strömförbrukning där resursbegränsade enheter nyttjas. Det här examensarbetet eftersträvar att lösa problemet med att modellera batterilivslängden hos en sensoranordning med en låg driftcykel, som en del av ett trådlöst sensornätverk avsett för att tillämpas i smarta hus och byggnader. Modellering i MATLAB kombinerat med experimentering används för att förutsäga den förväntade livslängden samt för att validera en hårdvaruimplementering. Flertalet scenarier med sovande noder modelleras och valideras, med allt från variabel uppvakningsfrekvens och paketöverföring till ökande resurskonflikter med ytterligare belastning på nätverket. I detta examensprojekt inkluderas en heltäckande analys av huvudorsakerna till energislöseriet hos enheterna och slutsatsen kan dras att modellen kan beräkna batterilivslängden för olika testscenarier med mindre än 5 % fel.

Examining methods for controlling the electricity demand in Kuwait was the main objective and motivation of this researchp roject. The extensiveu se of air-conditioning for indoor cooling in office and large commercial buildings in Kuwait and the Gulf States represents a major part of the power and electricity consumption in such countries. The rising electricity generation cost and growing rates of consumption continuously demand the construction new power plants. Devising and enforcing Demand-SideM anagemen(t DSM) in the form of energye fficient operations trategies was the response of this research project to provide a means to rectify this situation using the demand-side management technique known as demand levelling or load shifting. State of the art demand-sidem anagementte chniquesh ave been examined through the developmenot f a model basedp redictive control optimisations trategyf or an integrateda ndm odulara pproachto the provisiono f ice thermals torage. To evaluate the potential of ice-storage assisted air-conditioning systems in flattening the demand curve at peak times during the summer months in Kuwait, a model of a Heating, Ventilation, and Air-conditioning (HVAC) plant was developed in Matlab. The model engaged the use of model based predictive control (MPQ) as an optimisation tool for the plant as a whole. The model with MPC was developed to chose and decide on which control strategy to operate the integrated ice-storage HVAC plant. The model succeeded in optimising the operation of the plant and introduced encouraging improvement of the performance of the system as a whole. The concept of the modular ice-storage system was introduced through a control zoning strategy based on zonal orientation. It is believed that such strategy could lead to the modularisation of ice-storage systems. Additionally, the model was examined and tested in relation to load flattening and demonstrated promising enhancement in the shape of the load curve and demonstrated flattened demand curves through the employed strategy. When compared with measured data from existing buildings, the model showed potential for the techniques utilised to improve the load factor for office buildings.