Energy-constrained transmission on hybrid communication networks

The real communication systems usually consist of different types of agents, e.g. computers, routers, base stations and mobile phones, forming various hybrid communication networks. Furthermore, in many cases, those agents are energy-constrained resulting in a limited lifetime of the communication networks. We proposed a hybrid communication network model composed of energy-constrained base stations and mobile users, and further gave a novel energy-aware gateway selection strategy to balance the energy consumption of base stations. We developed a new metric of nodes, called node forwarding strength, which measures the intrinsic forwarding capability of nodes and is basically dependent on the network structure and routing protocol. Based on this metric, we further derived the critical packet generation rate of traffic congestion, average number of transmission hops, and network lifetime. By investigating the influence of factors on the network lifetime, we obtained the optimal user moving speed and gateway selection parameter corresponding to the maximum network lifetime. Our work may provide some clues for the designing and optimization of real hybrid communication systems.