Cross-layer scheduling and power control combined with adaptive modulation for wireless ad hoc networks

Efficient resource management is a major challenge in the operation of wireless systems, especially energy-constrained ad hoc networks. In this paper, we propose a cross-layer optimization framework to jointly design the scheduling and power control in wireless ad hoc networks. We study the system performance by combining scheduling, power control, and adaptive modulation. Specifically, the transmitted power and constellation size are dynamically adapted based on the packet arrival, quality of service (QoS) requirements, power limits, and channel conditions. A key feature of the proposed method is that it facilitates a distributed implementation, which is desirable in wireless ad hoc networks. Simulation results also show that the proposed scheme achieves significant gains in both throughput and power efficiency compared to typical methods, which implement the scheduling through a central controller, and adopt power control with fixed modulation.