A dynamic energy-saving strategy for green cellular railway communication network

Abstract

Energy saving is seldom contemplated in cellular railway communication network because safety is always the main focus. However, we analyzed train schedules and determined that the cellular railway network had considerable potential for energy saving. We designed a simple train detection strategy using the handover procedure to initiate power saving. We also proposed a flexible and effective solution based on the mealy-type finite state machine to transit the cell state between an energy-saving mode and a full running mode. The key design principle of the proposed solution consists in forming an orthogonal group and cluster, based on network deployment and train schedules, to simplify the state transition. Our evaluations using a real network deployment led to a significant energy saving of up to 33% with different power-saving strategies and factors.