Title
Low-power pervasive wi-fi connectivity using WiScan
Abstract
Pervasive Wi-Fi connectivity is attractive for users in places not covered by cellular services (e.g., when traveling abroad). However, the power drain of frequent Wi-Fi scans undermines the device's battery life, preventing users from staying always connected and fetching synced emails and instant message notifications (e.g., WhatsApp). We study the energy overhead of scan and roaming in detail and refer to it as the scan tax problem. Our findings show that the main processor is the primary culprit of the energy overhead. We propose a simple and effective architectural change of offloading scans to the Wi-Fi radio. We design and build WiScan to fully exploit the gain of scan offloading. Our experiments demonstrate that WiScan achieves 90%+ of the maximal connectivity, while saving 50-62% energy for seeking connectivity.
Year
DOI
Venue
2015
10.1145/2750858.2807515
ACM International Conference on Ubiquitous Computing
Keywords
Field
DocType
Wi-Fi connectivity, Wi-Fi scans, energy efficiency
Computer science,Efficient energy use,Computer network,Exploit,Battery (electricity),Roaming,Embedded system
Conference
Citations 
PageRank 
References 
1
0.36
29
Authors
5
Name
Order
Citations
PageRank
Tianxing Li136017.94
Chuankai An21209.00
Ranveer Chandra34089268.00
Andrew T. Campbell48958759.66
Xia Zhou5126470.59