Mathematical Problems in Engineering 
Volume 2005 (2005), Issue 5, Pages 491-501
doi:10.1155/MPE.2005.491

Collaborative power management in WPANs using rational controllers: a case study

J. Flinn,1 P. T. Kabamba,1 W.-C. Lin,1 S. M. Meerkov,1 and C. Y. Tang2

 1Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor 48109, MI, USA
2Honeywell Labs, Minneapolis 55418, MN, USA
Received 27 January 2005

Abstract

This paper addresses the issue of battery power conservation in wireless personal area networks (WPANs). Specifically, we consider a WPAN, which contains a processor and a disk drive, and develop a collaborative power management technique, which minimizes the total WPAN power consumption. Our approach is based on the theory of rational behavior, which leads to a collaborative architecture where devices in the WPAN are equipped with cooperating rational controllers (RCs). Using, as an example, the Intel 80200 XScale processor and the Hitachi 1 GB microdrive, we show that collaborative power management using RCs offers substantial power saving compared to selfish operation, where each device attempts to minimize only its own power consumption.