Cross-Layer Design: A Software Engineering Perspective

Cross-layer design is critical for efficient utilization of the scarce radio resources under time varying wireless channel. In this paper, a cross-layer design architecture named CLIME is proposed, which introduces the theory of modern software engineering to analyze the coupling in protocol stack brought by cross-layer designs. CLIME has the following distinct advantages. Firstly, DSA mechanism is used to build a loose coupling system by separating cross-layer interaction's implementation from its management. Secondly, the modularity of protocol stack is considered to simplify the implementation of cross-layer interaction, while keeping good system architecture. Thirdly, CLIME supports query based local and global crosslayer interaction, and proposes a simple way to manage the consistency of multiple cross-layer designs. And simulation is done on time expense of different cross-layer interactions in CLIME.