Power Save Mechanisms Supported by IEEE

802.11 Protocol

Tutorial - 1

Shashank Tadakamadla
Outline
• Association State Machine
• Power Save Mechanism Matrix
• Operation of Power Save Mechanisms
Terminology
• Traffic Indication Map (TIM)
– The TIM shall identify the STAs for which traffic is pending and
buffered in the AP.
– AP can buffer all types of traffic such as unicast & multicast/broadcast
traffic.
• Delivery Traffic Indication Message (DTIM)
– DTIM = (Integer) * Beacon Interval
– DTIM period is used to deliver broadcast/multicast traffic to STAs in PS
mode.
• Listen Interval
– Listen Interval = (Integer) * Beacon interval
– This field is advertised in Association Response of AP.
• Automatic Power Save Delivery (APSD)
• Spatial Multiplexing (SM)
• Power Save (PS)
• Power Save Multi-Poll (PSMP)
Points To Remember
• STA should wakeup at every Listen Interval, DTIM Beacon period.
– Listen Interval is determined at the AP based on its buffering capability.
• How does STA collects data from AP
– When STA is in awake mode, it listens to APs Beacon and looks at TIM IE. If it
finds any traffic for STAs AID, STA responds actively w.r.t power save
mechanism enabled on that STA.
– STA wakes up early enough to listen to its first Beacon after PS mode.
• QoS APs supporting U-APSD shall signal its capability through APSD
subfield present in the capability information of a Beacon.
• Access Category (AC)
– Traffic can be categorized into four categories
• AC_VI - Video
• AC_VO - Voice
• AC_BE - Best Effort
• AC_BK - Background
– APSD mechanism is used only when such AC is enabled by STA. Prerequisite
is that both AP & STA should support QoS (WMM).
Need for Power Save Mechanisms
• To reduce the power consumption of Wi-Fi
radios when a device has limited power.
Basic Association Block Diagram

Access Point Station

Probe Request
Probe Response

Basic Authentication
Association Authentication
Procedure
Association Request
Association Response

1. In the above diagram, I have assumed that AP is configured

with open security settings.
Types of Power Save Mechanisms
Power Save Mechanisms

Legacy APSD SM PSMP

Station Types

PS-Poll Non-PSPoll U-APSD S-APSD Static Dynamic U-PSMP S-PSMP

Non- QoS √ √ X X X X X X

QoS √ √ √ X X X X X

HT √ √ √ X √ √ √ √
PS-Poll Power Save Mechanism
1. STA transmits a PS-Poll
frame with Power
management bit set to 0 to Access Point Station
AP. Stage 1
2. ACK is optional. Basic Association Procedure

3. w.r.t to PS-Poll frame PS-Poll

1
received by AP, AP transmits Acknowledgement
2
Data frame for the AID Data
3
present in PS-Poll frame. Acknowledgement
4. If in the last transmitted data PS-Poll
frame transmitted by AP 4
contains More Data field set Acknowledgement
to 1, STA follows the Data
procedure present in stage 1. Acknowledgement
5
5. STA goes to sleep mode until
data from AP buffer is
empty.
Non-PS-Poll Power Save
Mechanism
1. STA transmits a
Data/Null frame with
Station
Power management bit Access Point
set to 0 to AP. Basic Association Procedure
2. w.r.t to Data/Null frame Null/Data Frame
1
received by AP, AP 2
Acknowledgement
transmits all Data 3
Data
4
buffered to the STA. Acknowledgement
3. If the More Data field is Data
set in the last data frame Acknowledgement
transmitted by AP, STA Data
waits for data from AP Acknowledgement
5
until More Data field is
0.
 ?
For any queries mail me at
shashank.tadakamadla@gmail.com