Use of wireless technology today

multimedia teleconferencing, games, WWW browsing, messaging, etc.

Wireless communications are evolving from circuit switched to packet switched infrastructures

a paradigm shift is emerging known as Cross-layer design (CLD).

Protocol design can be approached in two ways:

by following the rules of traditional layered architecture, or by violating the reference architecture.

Thus, protocol design by the violation of

Wireless research community has been divided into different groups

idea behind CLD is to combine the resources available in the different communities and create a network which can be highly adoptive and QoSefficient

There are two approaches to CLD:

evolutionary and revolutionary approaches. evolutionary approach: extension (upgradation) to existing layered structure to maintain compatibility

simple yet effective, bound to original strict

layered structure, limited extension

revolutionary approach: prioritizes performances and compatibility later

usually not favoured because of compatibility and

economy, time to market delay applied to highly specific problems where backward compatibility is not important

A large number of CLD has been proposed

existing proposals can be classified according to the type of architectural violation they represent as follows:
creation of new interfaces merging of adjacent layers design coupling without new interfaces vertical calibration across layers

Layer triggers:
predefined signals to notify special events between protocols cheap and quick to implement, maintains compatibility, most basic type

ECN, L2 triggers (logical link and

IP layers), etc. Event Helix Protocol Design:

Eventhelix is a streaming protocol allows dynamic insertion and removal

of protocol layer from a stack

MobileMan:

core component is the network status repository

protocols of different

layers can co-operate by sharing network status

fully compatible, robust and modular architechture

a system-wide CLD

Joint source channel coding:

Shares information between source coder and channel coder

adaptive and robust better performance under delay constraints or

time varying channels examples: source optimized channel coding, channel optimized source coding, etc

Designing a mobile broadband wireless network:

CLD optimization in 3G is difficult:

follows strict layered design sub-optimal resource and QoS utilization no

sufficient real time information excessive communication delay thus, information sharing not efficient isolated layers limits the ability of the transceiver and controller to be IP QoS aware

Thus, 4G system proposed Uses IP with air interface technology based on OFDM

Higher spectral efficiency achieved than in CDMA

based 3G lower layers are jointly optimized while maintaining the compatibility with standard IP architecture

CLD optimization provides scheduler with a rich set of cross-layered information such as traffic packet queue state, QoS demands and channel condition for all users, enabling it to make the best possible decision

Wireless sensor networks:

designing WSNs is a challenge with one of them being power consumption CLD approaches helps in a significant energy saving WSNs are task specific and most often a stand alone implementation which does not need to communication with other IP based networks

JSCC Shannon mapping:

Source and channel blocks that work in digital domain are replaced by a direct analogue source symbol to channel symbol through mapping

The role of the physical layer

in wired networks it sends and receives data when required but in wireless networks it plays bigger role like, multi packet reception.

The right communication model

wireless medium is inherently broadcast with no clear-cut concept of communication links in the wireless network new possibilities and schemes for communication rises

Co-existence of CLD Proposals

how different cross-layer design proposals can co-exist with one another? designers need to start establishing which cross-layer design proposals may or may not be employed in conjunction with a given crosslayer design scheme

When to invoke a CLD?

One of the motivations behind cross-layer design is to achieve the network equivalent of impedance matching A key component of making inroads towards the new architectures is to identify the interfaces between the protocol abstractions

Standardization of interfaces

Broadcast nature of the wireless medium

no point to point links protocols can be designed based on this nature

direct source to destination connection, connection through relay combined relay and source (node co-operation) More diversity, performance improvment

Two types of co-operation schemes

Planned co-operation
participating nodes and their roles are decided

before the transmission starts

Unplanned co-operation
nodes are not decided prior to transmission

planned cooperation involves significantly more violation of the layered architectures than unplanned cooperation

Most works are focused on joint design of 2 or 3 layer only CLD proposals are linked with issues related to

Communication, networking, architecture, etc

As capacities offered through wireless LAN approach its limit that can be handled through internet backbone,

Its important to look for the new techniques like cross-layer design