Energy savings in Wireless Mesh Networks in a time-variable context

Energy consumption of communication systems is becoming a fundamental issue and, among all the sectors, wireless access networks are largely responsible for the increase in consumption. In addition to the access segment, wireless technologies are also gaining popularity for the backhaul infrastructure of cellular systems mainly due to their cost and easy deployment. In this context, Wireless Mesh Networks (WMN) are commonly considered the most suitable architecture because of their versatility that allows flexible configurations. In this paper we combine the flexibility of WMN with the need for energy consumption reduction by presenting an optimization framework for network management that takes into account the trade off between the network energy needs and the daily variations of the demand. A resolution approach and a thorough discussion on the details related to WMN energy management are also presented.