Elsevier

Ad Hoc Networks

Volume 123, 1 December 2021, 102636
Ad Hoc Networks

D2D routing aided networking for efficient energy consumption management of wireless IoT

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.adhoc.2021.102636Get rights and content

Abstract

Since the past decades, the development of wireless communications has been thrusting the informationization of people′s life. While the smartphone mobile communications have greatly enhance user experiences, the conception of internet of things (IoT) which manages to achieve the broader network coverage of heterogeneous devices seems to be predictable. As an application based on internet and wireless communication techniques, the IoT might be promoted by the commercialization of present fifth generation (5G) mobile communication system. However, due to the considerable increase of information nodes, not limited to mobile phones, the direct networking strategy encounters energy consumption difficulties, which severely hinders the realization of IoT. To make a preliminary attempt at this moment, this work proposes an alternative device-to-device (D2D) strategy without the requirements of revolutionary hardware progresses. Based on the typical 5G architecture with achievable improvements (beyond-5G), an algorithmic D2D networking investigation is conducted for the wireless networking of ad hoc IoT. According to theoretical analysis and numerical simulation results, it is estimated that the appropriate D2D routing is capable of the reducing of energy consumption level up to 93%. As the energy efficiency is competent of the primitive IoT networking (e.g., long-term monitoring sensor network), this work supplies a cohort-study potentially boosting the wireless IoT systems come true.

Introduction

Throughout the history, the information propagations and communications have always been relating to the development and progress of human civilization. Since the late eighties of the last century, the internet has been flourishing along with the personal computer (PC) popularization [1]. By interconnecting with each other through server terminals, the information exchanges were significantly accelerated, and thus promoted the practical techniques in the following decades [2]. Almost meanwhile, a conception of ′′connecting the internet to ubiquitous devices′′ began to germinate [3], and further guided the investigations of internet of things (IoT) pursuing the more comprehensive data sharing [4]. However, due to the limitations in physical layer performances, the insufficient computation and communication capabilities severely hindered the practicalization of IoT. In the past decade, the hardware developments have made great progresses. By employing the broadband optical fibers, the data rate of internet has been enhanced to an unprecedented level. Moreover, the wireless communication techniques became widespread. For example, the wireless networking of a localized region through WiFi overcame the spatial movement limitations of PC (or laptops) terminals, and the wireless accesses of peripherals (e.g., Bluetooth) somehow and somewhat fuzzed the border between linking peripherals and interconnecting devices. In particular, the popularization of smartphones based on the long-term evolution (LTE) mobile communication profoundly broke through the device restriction of PCs. Nowadays, plenty of application components embedded in cell phones have realized the direct internet connection via cellular networks. Accompanying the continuous advancements in hardware, the construction of primitive object-to-object IoT is becoming predicable [5], [6], [7], more than a frontier conception.

Recently, the fifth generation (5G) mobile communication is becoming commercialized. Compared with former architectures, the new scenarios possess advantages in the data traffic performances via the utilization of higher frequency bands with broader spectra [8]. However, the high frequency also leads to larger energy consumption due to the path loss of radiowave propagation [9]. To ensure the energy consumption affordable, several advanced techniques have been adopted, such as enlarging the placement density of base stations, beamforming for directional transmission [10,11], and integrating massive many-input many-output (MIMO) antenna array in receiver [12], [13], [14]. However, although several practical 5G-based IoT scenarios have been proposed for the primitive networking of unmanned devices (e.g., NB-IoT, eMTC, LoRa, and Sigfox) [15], these IoT prototypes originated from the cell phone networks are still hindered by distance-induced path losses, while the device deployment density is considerably increased. As a result, the energy management has been listed in the blueprint of the next generation communication system (6G), as a representative breakthrough point [16], [17], [18].

As an upgraded architecture, the 6G standard remains in the verification stage [19], [20], [21]. Although the technical details are yet to be well-defined, the target for comprehensive networking of wireless IoT devices has been clearly pointed out [22], [23], [24], [25]. In order to achieve the reliable coverage of ubiquitous devices, which may take the amount at the order of magnitude much larger than smartphones (e.g., distributed sensors and actuators), the gigantic data traffic requires higher radiowave frequency for broader bandwidth, and thus faster data rate. As the commercialized 5G standard has occupied the millimeter wave band with the extremely high radio-frequency level over 30 GHz. Under the restraint of Shannon limit, the THz wavebands between microwave and infrared spectra are planned to be utilized [26]. However, the more serious path loss has to be considered [27], in addition to the cellular base station deployment [28]. On the other hand, the portable IoT devices using batteries particularly require the low energy consumption for the extension of standby time. As a result, the conflict between THz signal attenuation and energy management desires novel electronic or photonic components (e.g., metasurface devices) [29], [30], [31]. However, up to this day, the THz antennas remain in the laboratory-stage [32], [33], [34], [35], and the novel electron circuit components for the energy conservation are also encumbered by the large-scale tape-out [36], [37], [38]. On the basis of these hardware challenges, we consider that the cohort-study towards practical IoT realization could be first established based on the present 5G networks, or beyond-5G with the technically achievable upgrading [20,24]. Following these ideas, we conduct an investigation of wireless networking from the aspect of indirect routing, and make efforts to establish the device-to-device (D2D) networks consisting of duplex working devices, instead of deploying permanent base stations with extremely high site-density [39], [40], [41].

The D2D communication takes the advantages of data sharing among terminal devices and efficiently utilizing the information channels of devices [42,43], thus reduces the data traffic pressure of central node (e.g., base station). In particular, the D2D principle for IoT networking is compatible to the present cellular network architectures. Compared to the direct communication, the redundant channel capacity from nearby devices may enable the ad hoc paths reducing energy losses from the long-distance signal propagation [44]. To achieve energy-saving, the algorithmic routing determination plays an important role. In particular, we would like to note that D2D communications may lead to the extension of time latency. Thus, the practical scenarios should be applied in the situations of long-term continuous monitoring missions, such as distributed sensor networks, instead of the cases requiring rapid responses [45], [46], [47]. On the basis of these points, we present the theoretical and numerical investigations on the D2D routing and networking, as a cohort-study for the primitive IoT establishment, which is compatible to the present wireless mobile communication architectures.

Section snippets

Principle

As introduced above, the wireless IoT establishment will be discussed based on the D2D routing principle. An appropriate routing solution that achieves the wireless data delivery and relay exploiting the IoT devices is desired to match the performance requirements present cellular networks. In other words, the data delivery properties of IoT devices are required to be optimized. Because of that the energy consumption is related to the data transmission time, as well as the data rate [46], the

Numerical simulations

Based on model and constraints discussed above, the D2D routing determination will be further testified. In brief, the constraint will be calculated after each iteration, and negatively feedback for the asymptotic minimization of the constraint value [50]. While the iterative variations of constraint value are stably lower than a threshold, the iteration ends and output the final parameters reflecting the D2D routing path solution. In this work, the energy efficiency, described by Eq. (10),

Conclusion

In summary, we discussed an indirect D2D strategy for the wireless IoT networking based on the current development level of hardware. By creating the network model using present cellular mobile communication paradigms with the practically achievable hardware performances, we demonstrated that the algorithmic solutions of D2D routing path determined by convergent iterations are capable of the networking of wireless devices with the density much higher than cell phones. In particular, the

Declaration of Competing Interest

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

Acknowledgments

This work is partially supported by the TJNU Excellent Undergraduate Entrepreneurial Creativity Training Project (201910065372), the Natural Science Foundation of Tianjin Municipality (20JCQNJC00390), and the Funding Program of Tianjin Higher Education Creative Team.

Jiatong Li received the B.E. degree in Communication Engineering from Tianjin Normal University, Tianjin, China, in 2021. He joined the Interdisciplinary Laboratory of Advanced Materials and Devices (X-Lab), in 2019. His research interests include wireless sensor network and internet of things.

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  • Cited by (4)

    Jiatong Li received the B.E. degree in Communication Engineering from Tianjin Normal University, Tianjin, China, in 2021. He joined the Interdisciplinary Laboratory of Advanced Materials and Devices (X-Lab), in 2019. His research interests include wireless sensor network and internet of things.

    Menglin Li is an undergraduate student at Tianjin Normal University. She is pursing the B.S. degree in Communication Engineering, since 2018. Her research interests include wireless communication system simulation and analysis.

    Jiawei He is an undergraduate student at Tianjin Normal University. He is pursing the B.E. degree in Communication Engineering, since 2018. His research interests include graphical processing algorithms.

    Wen Shi is an undergraduate student at Tianjin Normal University. She is pursing the B.E. degree in Electronic Information Science and Technology, since 2018. Her research interestd include wireless communication system designs.

    Cheng Wang is an associate professor at Tianjin Normal University. He received the B.E. degree in Measurement Control Technology and Instrumentation from Xidian University, Xi′an, China, in 2006, the M.E. and Ph.D. degrees in Communication Engineering and Electrical Engineering from Nankai University, Tianjin, China, in 2010 and 2014, respectively. From 2012 to 2014, he worked in the Department of Mechanical Engineering, Columbia University, New York, United States, as a CSC joint-cultivation Ph.D. student, and switched his researches into semiconductor physics. After an interdisciplinary postdoctoral research from 2015 to 2017, in the Center for Sensor Technology of Environment and Health, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China, he joined Tianjin Normal University in 2017, as a principal investigator directing the Interdisciplinary Laboratory of Advanced Materials and Devices (X-Lab). His research interests include van der Waals heterostructure devices and novel sensor networks.

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