Energy Efficiency Approaches for Radio Nodes
16 June 2010
: Specific actions taken on radio node level represent basic issues addressed by the EARTH project, which has been defined to elaborate solutions for an energy efficient mobile radio communication system. The focus is on radio base station components and radio link concepts by utilising the potential for energy efficiency offered by holistic joint optimisations. A power efficient transceiver adapts the amount of dissipated power to the changing traffic load to capitalise the energy savings offered by low load situations. Therefor it supports the scaling of the consumed energy in several components by supporting dynamic power management, to enable the adaptation of energy consumption to actual performance requirements. A signal level dependent power supply is such a kind of feature, which controls the power efficiency of a power amplifier, the component with the highest amount of wasted energy. New techniques for implementing sleep modes in radio transceivers are addressed, allowing discontinuous transmission of base stations without compromising the quality of service. Key solutions introduced by this project are evaluated in a mobile network test plant of a major European operator, which allows their validation as stand-alone features or even in conjunction with other.