IEEE Technology Report

on Wake-Up Radio:
An Application, Market, and Technology Impact Analysis of
Low-Power/Low-Latency 802.11 Wireless LAN Interfaces

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Trademarks and Copyright
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©2017 IEEE
ISBN 978-1-5044-4234-3

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Table of Contents
Trademarks 4 The Candidates: IEEE 802.11ba, Wi-Fi,
1 Introduction Cellular, Bluetooth, et al.

1.1 Wake-Up Radio and the Internet of 4.1 Close Proximity: Contact Range, Up

Things (IoT) to 10 Meters

1.2 Battery Life: The Critical Factor 4.1.1 Wireless Body-Area Networks

1.3 Wake-Up Radio Concepts 4.1.2 RFID & NFC

1.3.1 Efficiency is in the Details 4.2 Wireless Personal Area Networks

1.4 Economic Impact of Battery Life (WPAN): Short Range, Up to 100

meters

2 Context: Market Opportunities in 4.3 Wireless Local Area Networks

the Remote IoT (WLAN): Short to Medium Range, Up

2.1 IoT Market Forecasts to 1000 meters

2.1.1 Regional Variation 4.4 Wireless Wide Area Networks

2.1.2 Sensors and Remote Devices (WWAN): Long Range, Up to 100 km

4.4.1 Low Power Wide Area

3 Wake-Up Radio: IoT Use Cases and Networks

Challenges
Appendix 1: Wake-Up Radio and
3.1 Coming Soon to a Thing Near You
IEEE Standards Development
3.1.1 Happening Now: Microgrids
• The PAR: Establishing the Need and
3.1.2 Transportation & Logistics: On
Objectives for a Low-Power Wake-
the Upswing
Up Radio Task Group
3.1.3 Killer Apps: Predictive Mainte-
• The Specification Framework for TGba
nance, Adaptive Manufacturing
3.1.4 Connected Cars
Appendix 2: The 802.11 Ecosystem
3.1.5 Remote Patient Monitoring
• Table 1: IEEE 802 at a Glance
3.2 2020 and Beyond
• Table 2: Select IEEE 802.11 Amendments at
3.2.1 Home, Smart Home
a Glance
3.2.2 Smart Cities
3.2.3 Example: Chicago and the Array
References
of Things
3.2.4 Into the Wild

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1 Introduction

1.1 Wake-Up Radio and the Internet of Things

Most “smart devices” today are smartphones, tablets, smart watches, laptop computers, and other similar
devices. Beginning sometime in 2018, however, non-cellular remote sensors and devices will begin
outnumber smartphones, and by 2020 they will account for more than half of all Internet-connected
things [1]. The potential applications for non-cellular remote sensors are limited only by battery life,
bandwidth, radio range (all inter-related), and the designers’ imaginations. They include smart factories
and warehouses, smart homes, wearable health devices, smart cars, smart grids, and smart cities [2].

FIGURE 1-1. ABSTRACT INTERNET OF THINGS COLLAGE

These remote sensors and devices will be off the power grid. They will instead depend on batteries,
solar power or wireless energy transfer - sources of power that oblige designers to stretch each milliwatt
as far as they can.

A new standard for Low-Power Wake-Up Radio (LP-WUR) for Wi-Fi® networks, now being developed by
the IEEE 802.11ba Task Group (TGba) is an important tool in the effort to substantially reduce remote-
device power consumption and extend battery life. Without greater power economy, building some
applications could be impossible – while frequent maintenance and battery changes would make others
economically impractical. [3]

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This report looks at Low-Power Wake-Up Radio’s potential impact on device longevity in the Internet of
Things; the market opportunity and technical challenges of selected use cases; the magnitude of the
aggregated IoT market; how IEEE 802.11 Wi-Fi communications fits into the scheme of IoT things; and
details TGba’s approach to Low-Power Wake-Up Radio.

1.2 Battery Life: The Critical Factor

Today’s smartphones usually have at least three main radios: the medium-range wireless local area
network (WLAN or Wi-Fi), the longer range cellular radio, and the short-range Bluetooth personal area
network. These may be joined by near field communications and Global Positioning System radios, and
accommodate an increasing number of legacy protocols for each radio (Figure 1-2).

FIGURE 1-2. ON YOUR PHONE: AN INCREASINGLY COMPLEX WEB OF STANDARDS AND PROTOCOLS.

The growing number of communications protocols implemented on smart devices. Source: Eric Starkloff, National
Instruments. Used by permission. [14]

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The Wi-Fi, cellular, and Bluetooth protocols are also the three main candidates for connecting the
Internet of Things—and each has strengths and weaknesses.

Wi-Fi (IEEE Std 802.11™) fits seamlessly into the IEEE 802 ecosystem that includes Ethernet (IEEE Std
802.3™)—and between the two, carry the lion’s share of the world’s digital data and offer straightforward
integration with the Internet and web-based services. [See Appendix 2 for a table of the principle IEEE
802 working groups and a quick review of some IEEE 802.11 Wi-Fi amendments that have expanded the
standard over the past two decades.] Wi-Fi and Ethernet are designed to accommodate high-bandwidth
data, such as streaming videos and file sharing systems. Wi-Fi can operate through user-owned
equipment and transmits on unlicensed radio frequencies. This makes it relatively easy and economical
to set up wireless LANs. By the same token, setting up a Wi-Fi network can require some configuration.
Until now, Wi-Fi has had a reputation for high power consumption, which has limited the service lives
of remote devices in the field. Low-Power Wake-Up Radio is aimed at provided a well-integrated power-
conservation tool to remedy this shortcoming.

Cellular radios—including data-oriented 4G and 5G services—offer long reach over licensed frequencies
via commercially owned and maintained infrastructure. Cell service is highly reliable with low latency
over wide areas, though users must generally use cell-system providers’ equipment and pay access fees.
Cellular communication remains focused on the base station: the cell tower. While there are proposals
for supporting direct device-to-device communication on the edge, those standards are still being
drafted and it is unclear whether and how this will be implemented.

Bluetooth® offers a short-distance, low-power connection. It was originally designed to connect cell
phones with wireless peripherals like headsets, and has been oriented towards lower-bandwidth
applications.

Smartphone users know that leaving the phone’s screen and radios active can drain a battery in just a
few hours. For example, an iPhone 7 with a 1,960 milliamp-hour battery may deliver about 15 hours of
3G phone talk time, 12 hours of Internet browsing over an LTE cell connection, or 15 hours of Internet
access over Wi-Fi. Short-range Bluetooth radios transmit at 1 to 2.5 milliwatts. Cellular and Wi-Fi radios
generally broadcast at anywhere from 100 to a maximum of 1,000 milliwatts. But they clearly do not
transmit constantly at full power; if they did, that 1,960 milliamp-hour battery would last no more than
five or six hours, even if the phone used no power for anything else.

Various amendments to the IEEE 802.11 standard (e.g., 802.11a, 802.11b, 802.11g, etc.) call for
transmitting at lower power where appropriate (or where required by a complex web of regulatory and
engineering requirements) at around 20 to 100 mW EIRP (equivalent isotropically radiated power, a
figure that takes the antenna’s signal boost into account). These are estimated figures as actual power
usage can vary in response to the details of the protocol and environmental conditions.

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1 Introduction

There are always trade-offs when trying to conserve power. Lower-power transmissions, for example,
may also reduce the signal-to-noise ratio—lowering data rates and necessitating longer transmissions.
Longer transmission times require more power, negating some of the apparent economy of switching to
lower power. Duty-cycling is a frequent solution for power conservation. The radio turns off and goes to
sleep when not in use, waking up for just a few milliseconds at intervals from a tenth of a second to an
hour, to see if anybody is trying to get through.

Early in the LP-WUR process, TGba Chair Minyoung Park calculated that running a Wi-Fi radio at a 2%
duty cycle in “legacy power saving mode”—having it wake up for 2 milliseconds out of every 100—
should reduce average idling power drain from about 100 mW to about 1.6 mW [4]. This would stretch
the idling time of a 130 mAh battery life from a few hours to about three days. The exact power saving
depends on a variety of factors; this example illustrates the general kinds of improvement LP-WUR
should produce, rather than predicting specific performance.

FIGURE 1-3. OVERVIEW OF LOW-POWER WAKE-UP RADIO FOR 802.11.

The proposed IEEE 802.11ba Low-Lower Wake-Up Radio design adds a second radio, drawing less than 100
microwatts when it is active, to the more powerful main radio to remain asleep until needed to transfer data.
Source: LP-WUR (Low-Power Wake-Up Receiver): Enabling Low-Power and Low-Latency Capability to 802.11(IEEE
802.11-16/0027r0) [4].

The IEEE 802.11ba Wake-Up Radio plan adds a second, low-power radio receiver to the device (Figure
1-3). The low-power radio listens silently, waiting for the network to call its name. Only then does the
device turn on its main Wi-Fi radio and begin exchanging data. This is not a new technique by any
means, observers point out, as it has been used on an ad hoc basis many times in the past [5]–[8];

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TGba is new, however, in adding Low-Power Wake-Up Radio to the 802.11 standard. In Park’s analysis, an
always-on Low-Power Wake-Up Radio (LP-WUR) would consume about 0.105 mW. Applying a 2% duty
cycle to a LP-WUR would drop radio power consumption to about 0.007 mW (Figure 1-4).

FIGURE 1-4. REDUCING DEMAND FOR BATTERY POWER.

Legacy power-saving mode (2% duty cycling, with Wi-Fi main radio waking up for 2 milliseconds every 100
milliseconds) cuts power usage to about 1.6 mW. Low-Power Wake-Up Radio in constant operation would use
only about 0.105 mW, and LP-WUR on a 2% duty cycle would cut power demand to just 0.007 mW. [U-APSD:
unscheduled automatic power save delivery. TWT: Target Wake Time (Duty-Cycle). PS Poll: An 802.11 control
frame] Source: LP-WUR (Low-Power Wake-Up Receiver): Enabling Low-Power and Low-Latency Capability for
802.11 (IEEE 802.11-16/0027r0) [4].

The impact on battery life is dramatic. An always-on 100 mW Wi-Fi main radio might drain a 3-volt, 130
milliamp hour (mAh) battery in under four hours. Duty-cycling the same radio might increase battery
life to more than 3 days. Operating a Low-Power Wake-Up Radio on the same duty cycle, though, could
stretch battery life to 694 days [4] (Figure 1-5). Reduce the duty cycle still further and add engineering
expertise to streamline signal handling, and engineers can look forward to thousand-fold increases in
battery life and years of operation on a single charge.

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1 Introduction

FIGURE 1-5. POWER CONSUMPTION AND BATTERY LIFE.

A theoretical example of possible improvements in battery life, comparing power consumption and service time
using Low-Power Wake-Up Radio with savings possible using legacy duty-cycling techniques with the remote
device’s main Wi-Fi radio. Source: LP-WUR (Low-Power Wake-Up Receiver): Enabling Low-Power and Low-Latency
Capability for 802.11 (IEEE 802.11-16/0027r0) [4].

Engineers working on LP-WUR point out an interesting trade-off in coordinating wake-up periods for
duty-cycling applications: highly accurate clocks consume more power. Lower-power clocks, like those
chosen to extend battery life in a remote device, tend to drift more over time. Access points will have to
make allowances for this drift and open longer check-in windows in order to catch the Wake-Up Radio
(WUR) when it is awake and resynchronize its clock. The accommodation could theoretically work the
other way, with the WUR starting its own duty cycle early to be sure to catch a very punctual access
point. This would increase WUR power consumption, and negate some of the advantages of LP-WUR.

End of Section 1 Preview

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3 Wake-Up Radio: IOT Use Cases and Challenges

What makes market forecasting so uncertain is also what makes the Internet of Things so exciting: No
one really knows what all those Internet of Things devices will be. Some use cases are clear, especially in
the short term. Others are yet to emerge (Figure 3-1).

FIGURE 3-1. HEAT MAP OF IOT OPPORTUNITIES.

How avidly important industry segments are pursuing the principal Internet of Things applications and use cases,
according to Forrester. Source: Forrester. Used by permission [62].

Products are already moving into many IoT markets, and more are in the pipeline. But manufacturers still
need to gain valuable experience in developing connected devices and services. Will implementation
expertise continue moving upstream, from the Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) to the
component suppliers? And to what extent will electric utilities, automobile manufacturers, or home
appliance makers find themselves enmeshed in telecommunications technology that is far from their
core businesses?

“The IoT demands an extensive range of new technologies and skills that many organizations have
yet to master,” said Nick Jones, a Gartner vice president and analyst, discussing the most important
IoT technologies for 2017 and 2018 [15]. “A recurring theme in the IoT space is the immaturity of
technologies and services and of the vendors providing them. Architecting for this immaturity and
managing the risk it creates will be a key challenge for organizations exploiting the IoT. In many
technology areas, lack of skills will also pose significant challenges.”

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Appendix 1: Wake-Up Radio and the IEEE
Standards Process

The IEEE standards development process strives to be open and transparent. Standards working groups
are open to any interested parties. New IEEE Standards begin with an idea. A general outline for a new
standard or an amendment to an existing standard goes through a formal process that generates a
Project Authorization Request (or PAR), which lays out the rationale for developing a new standard and
outlines the scope of the project (Figure A1-1).

FIGURE A1-1. IEEE STANDARDS FLOWCHART. SOURCE: IEEE STANDARDS ASSOCIATION.

After study groups examined the need for Low-Power Wake-Up Radio in 2016, the IEEE 802.11 Working
Group wrote a PAR to formally state the needs and scope of the project, and establish the 802.11ba
Wake-Up Radio Task Group (or TGba). New projects for amending the IEEE 802.11 standard are issued
a letter designation in the order in which they are accepted. The series began with 802.11a for the first
amendment to the base 802.11 standard, ran through the alphabet to z—with gaps—then started over
with two-letter designations from aa to az—also with gaps—and now 802.11ba begins the third series.

TGba began meeting in January 2017. The initial specification process is expected to take about 10
months, producing a “Draft 0.1” in January 2018, followed by a first draft standard around May 2018, and
a second draft in September 2018 (Figure A1-2). That draft standard produced by the working group will
be available while the draft undergoes reviews, inlcuding formal Sponsor Balloting before going to IEEE
Standards Association Standards Board for ratification.

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 FIGURE A1-2. 802.11BA STANDARD-DEVELOPMENT TIMELINE.

The 802.11 Working Group membership includes some 300 voters. Participation is open, and members
come from big companies (manufacturers of communications equipment, computer components,
computers, storage media, and software), universities, government, small companies, and single-person
engineering shops. Participants’ names and affiliations are listed on the 802.11 Working Group website
(http://ieee802.org/11/), which also includes comprehensive information on the group’s activities.
Proposals and analyses clearly identify their contributors.

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