Cross-Layer Design of Wireless Multihop Backhaul Networks With Multiantenna Beamforming

A cross-layer design approach is considered for joint routing and resource allocation for the physical (PHY) and the medium access control (MAC) layers in multihop wireless backhaul networks. The access points (APs) are assumed to be equipped with multiple antennas capable of both transmit and receive beamforming. A nonlinear optimization problem is formulated, which maximizes the fair throughput of the APs in the network under the routing and the PHY/MAC constraints. Dual decomposition is employed to decouple the original problem into smaller subproblems in different layers, which are coordinated by the dual prices. The network layer subproblem can be solved in a distributed manner and the PHY layer subproblem in a semidistributed manner. To solve the PHY layer subproblem, an iterative minimum mean square error (IMMSE) algorithm is used with the target link signal-to-interference-and-noise-ratio (SINR) set dynamically based on the price generated from the upper layers. A scheduling heuristic is also developed, which improves the choice of the transmission sets over time. Simulation results illustrate the efficacy of the proposed cross-layer design.     

Cross-layer resource allocation for real-time services in OFDM-based cognitive radio systems

The resource allocation problem on the downlink of a multiuser OFDM-based cognitive radio (CR) system is formulated using a cross-layer (MAC and PHY layers) approach with the aim of satisfying quality of service (QoS) requirements in real-time applications. The number of subchannels available to the CR system is time-varying as a result of the stochastic nature of the activities of the primary users (PUs). The MAC layer QoS requirements are dynamically converted to PHY layer rate requirements; the conversion depends on the delivery status of queued packets as well as the number of available subchannels. Simulation results show that the proposed cross-layer resource allocation algorithm can provide substantial transmit power reductions compared to existing PHY layer and MAC layer solutions designed for multiuser OFDM systems.     

MIMO-OFDM中基于业务类型的跨层资源分配研究

提出了一种基于PHY层和MAC层的跨层资源自适应方案。该方案首先把业务类型划分为实时业务和非实时业务,并在此基础上针对业务类型在MAC层对分组进行调度和在PHY层对子载波和功率分配。     

Cross-Layer Multi-Packet Reception Based Medium Access Control and Resource Allocation for Space-Time Coded MIMO/OFDM

In this paper, a cross-layer design framework for multi-input multi-output (MIMO)/orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) based wireless local area networks (WLANs) is proposed. In contrast to conventional systems where the medium access control (MAC) and physical (PHY) layers are separately optimized, our proposed methodology jointly designs a multi-packet reception (MPR) based protocol with adaptive resource allocation. Specifically, a realistic collision model is employed by taking into consideration the PHY layer parameters such as channel information, space-time coded beamforming and multiuser detection, as well as sub-carrier, bit, and power allocation. The allocation problem is formulated, so as to maximize the system throughput, subject to the constraints from both the MAC and PHY layers. These constraints depend on the results of access contention, data packets? length, users? spatial correlation and the quality of channel feedback information. An iterative algorithm is then provided to obtain the optimal solution. Simulation results will show that our proposed approach achieves significant improvement in system performance such as average throughput and packet delay, compared with conventional schemes where cross-layer design and optimization is not used.     

Resource allocation based on cross-layer QoS-guaranteed scheduling for multi-service multi-user MIMO–OFDMA systems

Cross-layer strategies for resource allocation in wireless networks are essential to guaranty an efficient utilization of the scarce resource. In this paper, we present an efficient radio resource allocation scheme based on PHY/MAC cross layer design and QoS-guaranteed scheduling for multi-user (MU), multi-service (MS), multi-input multi-output (MIMO) concept, orthogonal frequency division multiple access (OFDMA) systems. It is about a downlink multimedia transmission chain in which the available resources as power and bandwidth, are dynamically allocated according to the system parameters. Among these parameters, we can mention the physical link elements such as channel state information, spectral efficiency and error code corrector rate, and MAC link variables, which correspond to the users QoS requirements and the queue status. Primarily, we use a jointly method which parametrizes these system parameters, according to the total power, and the bit error rate constraints. Secondly, we propose a QoS-guaranteed scheduling that shares the sub-carriers to the users. These users request several type of traffic under throughput threshold constraints. The main objective in this work is to adjust the average throughput per service of each user, according to their needs and likewise to satisfy a great number of connexions. Subsequently, we consider a model of moderated compartmentalization between various classes of services by partitioning the total bandwidth into several parts. Each class of service will occupy a part of the bandwidth and will be transmitted over a maximum number of sub-carriers. The simulation results show that the proposed strategy provides a more interesting performance improvement (in terms of average data rate and user satisfaction) than other existing resource allocation schemes, such as nonadaptive resource allocation strategy. The performances are also analyzed and compared for the two multi-service multi-user MIMO–OFDMA systems; with sub-carriers partitioning and without sub-carriers partitioning.     

MIMO-OFDM系统的物理层技术及其PHY-MAC跨层设计

首先讨论了MIMO-OFDM无线通信系统的物理层技术原理，接着介绍了一种下行MIMO-OFDM系统中基于PHY-MAC跨层设计的保证不同类型（实时与非实时）用户服务质量（QoS）的动态资源分配（DRA）方案。该方案中系统能够根据不同的信道状态以及不同类型的QoS要求在PHY层和MAC层联合动态分配资源，相对传统的分层结构设计更为合理有效。     

Resource management for QoS support in cellular/WLAN interworking

To provide mobile users with seamless Internet access anywhere and anytime/ there is a strong demand for interworking mechanisms between cellular networks and wireless local area networks in the next-generation all-IP wireless networks. In this article we focus on resource management and call admission control for QoS support in cellular/WLAN interworking. In specific, a DiffServ interworking architecture with loose coupling is presented. Resource allocation in the interworking environment is investigated/ taking into account the network characteristics, vertical handoff, user mobility, and service types. An effective call admission control strategy with service differentiation is proposed for QoS provisioning and efficient resource utilization. Numerical results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed call admission control scheme.     

A cross-layer scheme for medium access control with QoS guaranteeing for Ad hoc networks

1 Introduction medium access control (MAC) protocols play a crucial role in determining the performance of Ad hoc networks. However, the design of MAC protocols for Ad hoc networks has traditionally been separated from that of the physical layer. In most …     

Cross-layer wireless resource allocation

A fundamental problem in networking is the allocation of limited resources among the users of the network. In a traditional layered network architecture, the resource to be allocated at the medium access control (MAC) and network layers utilizes communication links, viewed as "bit pipes" that deliver data at a fixed rate with occasional random errors. Though this separation has many advantages, there is a growing awareness that this simple bit-pipe view is inadequate, particularly in the context of modern wireless data networks. In this article, several basic cross-layer resource allocation problems for wireless fading channels are considered. The article focuses on the characterization of fundamental performance limits while taking into account both network layer QoS and physical layer performance.     

PLC家庭网络MAC协议与QoS保证

由于电力线介质条件恶劣,物理信道传输不稳定,PLC MAC协议的设计较为困难.本文首先介绍了PLC家庭网络的拓扑结构和多媒体业务的QoS要求,然后分析和比较了各类MAC协议对PLC家庭网络的适用性和QoS保证能力,并对有竞争与无竞争的PLC MAC协议研究的最新成果及其采用的QoS保证机制进行了分析.本文认为有竞争与无竞争方式相结合的混合型MAC协议是最适合PLC家庭网络的MAC协议.     

Multicast Broadcast Services Support in OFDMA-Based WiMAX Systems [Advances in Mobile Multimedia]

Multimedia stream service provided by broadband wireless networks has emerged as an important technology and has attracted much attention. An all-IP network architecture with reliable high-throughput air interface makes orthogonal frequency division multiplexing access (OFDMA)-based mobile worldwide interoperability for microwave access (mobile WiMAX) a viable technology for wireless multimedia services, such as voice over IP (VoIP), mobile TV, and so on. One of the main features in a WiMAX MAC layer is that it can provide'differentiated services among different traffic categories with individual QoS requirements. In this article, we first give an overview of the key aspects of WiMAX and describe multimedia broadcast multicast service (MBMS) architecture of the 3GPP. Then, we propose a multicast and broadcast service (MBS) architecture for WiMAX that is based on MBMS. Moreover, we enhance the MBS architecture for mobile WiMAX to overcome the shortcoming of limited video broadcast performance over the baseline MBS model. We also give examples to demonstrate that the proposed architecture can support better mobility and offer higher power efficiency.     

QoS Provisioning with New Effective Bandwidth/Buffer Calculation Scheme in Wireless IP Networks

The huge commercial success of mobile telephony, the phenomenal growth of Internet users, the popularity of IP-based multimedia applications are the major driving forces behind third-generation (3G), ongoing Byond 3G (B3G), and forth-genertion (4G) evolution. 3G brought wired applications, both data and multimedia, into wireless environments. It operates on IP-based infrastructures to provide wider service access capability. To support and satisfy QoS (Quality of Service) of diverse IP-based multimedia applications, traffic management, such as Connection Admission Control (CAC) and resource allocation, becomes essential. CAC and resource allocation are computationally complex when combined with QoS guarantee for traffic with different characteristics. However, CAC and resource allocation are real-time traffic control procedures. Hence, processing load should be minimized to reduce delay. At the same time, network resources should be utilized efficiently to accommodate more users. However, reducing processing load and obtaining high resource utilization efficiency has been considered to be contradictory matter. In addition, CAC and resource allocation schemes which consider multiple QoS criteria – loss and delay – simultaneously have not been adequately studied. Simultaneous QoS consideration is important to satisfy stringent and diverse QoS requirements of multimedia traffic. In this paper, we propose a nobel effective bandwidth/buffer calculation method based on a virtual channel/buffer analysis scheme. We show that our method can achieve high resource utilization efficiency with reduced processing load. Moreover, we show that our scheme allows for simultaneous consideration of multiple QoS criteria, loss and delay.     

Variable Beam Width Selection for Improving the Throughput of IEEE 802.11ad Wireless LAN in the Contention Based Access Period

The hybrid MAC protocol specified by IEEE 802.11ad for millimeter wave wireless LANs consist of carrier sense multiple access/collision avoidance (CSMA/CA) during the contention based access periods (CBAPs) and TDMA during the service periods. To provide channel access during CBAP, the coverage area around the access point (AP) can be divided into several quasi omni (QO) beam levels. When uplink channel access during CBAP is considered, every directional multigigabit station residing within a QO level uses CSMA/CA protocol for getting the transmission opportunity. With equal beam width receive QO levels at the AP, we present an analytical model to compute the uplink throughput of the network in the CBAP, by closely following the 802.11ad MAC protocol specifications. We demonstrate that PHY layer MCS (modulation and coding scheme) dependent adaptive selection of QO levels can improve the throughput performance. In the second part of the paper, we consider that PCP/AP can have at most three radios, each tuned to operate in non-overlapping frequency bands as specified by 802.11ad PHY. We establish that such an arrangement can lead to concurrent transmissions in the network and improve the uplink throughput performance.     

An Autonomic QoS-centric Architecture for Integrated Heterogeneous Wireless Networks

In this paper the problem of seamless mobility and proficient joint radio resource management over an all-IP internetworked wireless heterogeneous environment is addressed. Nodes’ autonomicity is envisioned as the enabler to devise a Quality of Service (QoS) aware architecture for supporting a variety of services, founded on a common utility based framework that provides enhanced flexibility in reflecting different access networks’ type of resources and diverse QoS prerequisites, under a unified QoS-aware resource allocation optimization problem. This allows a more in-depth intrinsic wireless network convergence, beyond All-IP, driven by QoS-oriented resource management. This vision is demonstrated and instantiated for integrated WLAN and cellular (both CDMA and OFDMA) networks, providing a viable path towards the evolution and realization of the future wireless networking paradigm. Initial numerical results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed architecture and reveal the benefits of such a service oriented paradigm against other existing access oriented autonomic designs.     

End-to-end QoS resource management for an IP-based DWDM access network

The ever-increasing use of broad-band Internet and complex multimedia applications is pushing fiber closer and closer to the homes. Within the European project IST HARMONICS (Hybrid Access Reconfigurable Multi-wavelength Optical Networks for IP-based Communication Services), an optical access feeder network and resource management framework were developed that tackle this demand for bandwidth and the desire to stimulate the convergence of last-mile access technologies. To cope with the lack of bandwidth in the access and last-mile networks and the different needs of applications and users, the developed management system provides end-to-end quality of service (QoS) while integrating multiple technologies. In this paper, a detailed overview of the end-to-end QoS management framework and novel time slot/wavelength MAC protocol for the optical feeder network is given. End-to-end QoS is based on Differentiated services (DiffServ) at layer 3, various QoS supporting technologies at layer 2, and QoS mappings between both layers. The paper will also focus on the field trial results of the HARMONICS project and give some guidelines for possible problems and solutions in this area.     

A-MAC: Adaptive Medium Access Control for Next Generation Wireless Terminals

Next generation (NG) wireless networks are envisioned to provide high bandwidth to mobile users via bandwidth aggregation over heterogeneous wireless architectures. NG wireless networks, however, impose challenges due to their architectural heterogeneity in terms of different access schemes, resource allocation techniques as well as diverse quality of service requirements. These heterogeneities must be captured and handled dynamically as mobile terminals roam between different wireless architectures. However, to address these challenges, the existing proposals require either a significant modification in the network structure and in base stations or a completely new architecture, which lead to integration problems in terms of implementation costs, scalability and backward compatibility. Thus, the integration of the existing medium access schemes, e.g., CSMA, TDMA and CDMA, dictates an adaptive and seamless medium access control (MAC) layer that can achieve high network utilization and meet diverse quality of service (QoS) requirements. In this paper, an adaptive medium access control (A-MAC) layer is proposed to address the heterogeneities posed by the NG wireless networks. A-MAC introduces a two-layered MAC framework that accomplishes the adaptivity to both architectural heterogeneities and diverse QoS requirements. A novel virtual cube concept is introduced as a unified metric to model heterogeneous access schemes and capture their behavior. Based on the virtual cube concept, A-MAC provides architecture-independent decision and QoS based scheduling algorithms for efficient multi-network access. A-MAC performs seamless medium access to multiple networks without requiring any additional modifications in the existing network structures. It is shown via extensive simulations that A-MAC provides adaptivity to the heterogeneities in NG wireless networks and achieves high performance.     

Efficient resource allocation for China's 3G/4G wireless networks

The all-IP DiffServ model is expected to be the most promising architecture for QoS provisioning in China's next-generation wireless networks, due to its scalability, convenience for mobility support, and capability of interworking heterogeneous radio access networks. This article focuses on efficient resource allocation in a wireless DiffServ architecture. Resource utilization efficiency is particularly important for China's wireless networks as the mobile user density in China is and will continue to be much higher than that in other countries. More specifically, we propose a novel buffer sharing scheme to provide assured service for real-time layer-coded multimedia traffic, which can guarantee the specific packet loss requirement of each layer with UDP as the transport layer protocol. An adaptive optimal buffer configuration can be applied to achieve maximum resource utilization over the time-varying channel. Assured service is also provided to TCP data traffic for guaranteed throughput, where the cross-layer coupling between the TCP layer and link layer is exploited to efficiently utilize the wireless resources.     

Impact of MAC frame length on energy efficiency in 6LowPAN

To reach necessary end-to-end connectivity between the Internet and wireless sensor networks （WSNs）, the Internet Engineering Task Force （IETF） IPv6 over low power wireless personal area network （6LowPAN） working group has been established and introduced an adaptation layer for integration of IEEE 802.15.4 physical layer/media access control （PHY/MAC） layers and the upper layers of any Intemet protocol （IP）-based networks, such as the Internet. The energy efficiency is one of the most important performance measures in WSNs because most sensor nodes are only battery powered so we should reduce the energy consumption to the lowest to extend the life of nodes. Therefore the determination of MAC frame length should be carefully considered since that the radio frequency （RF） module consumes most the energy of a sensor node meanwhile the MAC protocol is the direct controller of RF module. In this paper, we provide a star-shaped 6LowPAN non-beacon mode with unslotted carrier sense multiple access with collision avoidance （CSMA/CA） mechanism to access to the channel and model the stochastic behavior of a target end node as the M/G/1 queuing system. Analytical expressions for some parameters such as channel busy probability, packet loss probability and energy efficiency are obtained in this paper and our analytical results can clearly show the impact of MAC frame length on the energy efficiency of a target node in both ideal and lossy channel.     

QoS-, Queue-and Channel-Aware Packet Scheduling for Multimedia Services in Multiuser SDMA/TDMA Wireless Systems

With the growing demand for wireless multimedia services and continuing emergence of new multimedia applications, it is necessary for the network to provide various levels of quality of service (QoS) while maximizing the utilization of channel resources. This paper presents an adaptive queuing model and a novel cross-layer packet scheduling algorithm for providing differentiated QoS and effective channel utilization in a space-division-multiple-access/time-division-multiple-access (SDMA/TDMA) system. At the medium access control (MAC) layer, we take into consideration the heterogeneous and bursty nature of multimedia traffic and provide for QoS requirements. At the physical (PHY) layer, we exploit the randomness of the physical channel by incorporating opportunistic scheduling and adopting adaptive modulation and coding (AMC). Performance results obtained by simulations show that by employing the proposed queuing model and packet scheduling algorithm, the system is able to provide for diverse QoS and achieve high throughput.     

A Tutorial on Cross-Layer Optimization in Wireless Networks

This tutorial paper overviews recent developments in optimization-based approaches for resource allocation problems in wireless systems. We begin by overviewing important results in the area of opportunistic (channel-aware) scheduling for cellular (single-hop) networks, where easily implementable myopic policies are shown to optimize system performance. We then describe key lessons learned and the main obstacles in extending the work to general resource allocation problems for multihop wireless networks. Towards this end, we show that a clean-slate optimization-based approach to the multihop resource allocation problem naturally results in a “loosely coupled” cross-layer solution. That is, the algorithms obtained map to different layers [transport, network, and medium access control/physical (MAC/PHY)] of the protocol stack, and are coupled through a limited amount of information being passed back and forth. It turns out that the optimal scheduling component at the MAC layer is very complex, and thus needs simpler (potentially imperfect) distributed solutions. We demonstrate how to use imperfect scheduling in the cross-layer framework and describe recently developed distributed algorithms along these lines. We conclude by describing a set of open research problems.