Foundations of Green communications

Achieving energy-efficient “Green” communications requires the cooperation of all blocks in a communication system. This includes the baseband, the transmitter, the receiver, the protocol, and most importantly the signal modulation selected. Optimizing any one of these, which is a common approach, leaves the entire system far from its optimum efficiency. But when the entire system is designed for optimum efficiency in the presence of all throughput requirements, significant energy savings relative to conventional design are likely to be realized. These techniques hold equally for wireless and wireline communication channels.

I. Introduction

The need to achieve energy efficiency in electronic communication, so-called Green Communications (GComm), is widespread. This is certainly obvious for any battery powered mobile or remote devices using wireless channels. But it also is important for fixed location devices that operate in very large numbers using either wired or wireless channels. This situation is present in massive server farms and is also envisioned for the upcoming Internet of Things (IoT), particularly when powered by harvested energy. Low cost for both manufacturing and operation is additionally required when the count of these devices heads toward billions. It is fortunate that higher energy efficient communications tend to also have lower costs in both of these categories. [1]