Packet delay and energy consumption are important considerations in wireless and sensor networks as these metrics directly affect the quality of service of the application and the resource consumption of the network; especially, for a rapidly growing class of real-time applications that impose strict restrictions on packet delays. Dynamic rate control is a novel technique for adapting the transmission rate of wireless devices, almost in real-time, to opportunistically exploit time-varying channel conditions as well as changing traffic patterns. Since power consumption is not a linear function of the rate and varies significantly with the channel conditions, adapting the rate has significant benefits in minimizing energy consumption. These benefits have prompted significant research in developing algorithms for achieving optimal rate adaptation while satisfying quality of service requirements. In this book, we provide a comprehensive study of dynamic rate control for energy minimization under packet delay constraints. We present several formulations and approaches adopted in the literature ranging from discrete-time formulations and dynamic programming based solutions to continuous-time approaches utilizing ideas from network calculus and stochastic optimal control theory. The goal of this book is to expose the reader to the important problem of wireless data transmission with delay constraints and to the rich set of tools developed in recent years to address it.
