Reducing Signaling and Respecting Time-Scales in Cross-Layer Protocols Design for Wireless Networks

Current proposals for joint power and rate allocation protocols in ad hoc networks require a large signaling overhead, and do not adhere to the natural time-scales of transport and power control mechanisms. We present a solution that overcomes these issues. We pose the protocol design as a network utility maximization problem and adopt primal decomposition techniques to devise a novel distributed cross-layer design for transport and physical layer that achieves the optimal network operation. Our solution has several attractive features compared to alternatives: it adheres to the natural time-scale separation between rapid power control updates and slower end-to-end rate adjustments; it allows simplified power control mechanisms with reduced signalling requirements, and distributed slow rate cross-layer signalling mechanisms; and it maintains feasibility at each iteration. We validate the theoretical framework and compare the solution alternatives with numerical examples.