Energy-efficient traffic offloading for mobile users in two-tier heterogeneous wireless networks

• Published in: Future generation computer systems Vol. 105; pp. 855 - 863
• Main Authors: Lu, Feng, Hu, Jingru, Yang, Laurence Tianruo, Tang, Zaiyang, Li, Peng, Shi, Ziqian, Jin, Hai
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Elsevier B.V 01.04.2020
• Subjects: Energy saving; Heterogeneous wireless networks; Stochastic geometry; Traffic offloading; Stochastic geometry; Heterogeneous wireless networks; Energy saving; Traffic offloading
• ISSN: 0167-739X; 1872-7115
• DOI: 10.1016/j.future.2017.08.008

Heterogeneous wireless networks have been proposed as an efficient network structure to handle explosive data traffic. Although many researchers have focused on traffic offloading strategies, they rarely considered user mobility and energy efficiency in large-scale heterogeneous wireless networks. In this paper, a large-scale two-tier heterogeneous wireless network modeled by using stochastic approaches has been developed firstly. After given the transfer data with deadline and trace, the Stochastic Programming based Handover Scheduling (SP-HS) has been explained. Then, to minimize the total energy consumption of mobile user equipments, an algorithm that determines how user equipments switch between different networks along with their traveling trajectory is designed. We have conducted extensive simulated experiments to evaluate the performance of our algorithm. The simulated results indicate that up to 34% energy could be saved under typical network settings by using SP-HS. •We model a data offloading problem for UEs in a large-scale heterogeneous network.•We prove the expected time of WiFi coverage of UEs is irrelevant to the trajectories.•We formulate the energy minimization problem as a quadratic programming problem.•Based on extensive simulations, up to 34% of energy can be saved in dense networks.