Is Clock Synchronization Essential for Power Management in IEEE 802.11-Based Mobile Ad Hoc Networks?

Power is always a major concern for mobile devices. To save precious energy, mobile devices choose to stay in a low power mode by turning off their transceivers when it is not involved with transmission. However, they need to wake up to allow packets originated from them sent and those coming to them received. This presents a challenge in the distributed environment as in ad hoc networks. In this paper, we discuss the relationship between clock synchronization and power-saving in IEEE 802.11-like mobile ad hoc networks. Based on observations and studies of other power-saving protocols, we propose an integrated protocol for both clock synchronization and power-saving targeted for a mobile environment. It handles topology changes satisfactorily, and simulation results show it has superior performance over other protocols.