Energy-Efficiency of Cooperative MIMO Wireless Systems

Abstract

Increasing focus on global warming has challenged the scientific community to develop ways to mitigate its adverse effects. This is more so important as different technologies become an integral part of daily human life. Mobile wireless networks and mobile devices form a significant part of these technologies. It is estimated that there are over four billion mobile phone subscribers worldwide and this number is still growing as more people get connected in developing countries [1]. In addition to the growing number of subscribers, there is an explosive growth in high data applications among mobile terminal users. This has put increased demand on the mobile network in terms of energy needed to support both the growth in subscribers and higher data rates. The mobile wireless industry therefore has a significant part to play in the mitigation of global warming effects. To achieve this goal, there is a need to develop and design energy efficient communication schemes for deployment in future networks and upgrades to existing networks. This is not only done in the wireless communication infrastructure but also in mobile terminals. In this thesis a practical power consumption model which includes circuit power consumption from the different components in a transceiver chain is analyzed. This is of great significance to practical system design when doing energy consumption and energy efficiency analysis. The proposed power consumption model is then used to evaluate the energy efficiency in the context of cooperative Multiple Input Multiple Output (MIMO) systems.