Joint power adaptation, scheduling and routing framework for wireless ad-hoc networks

In wireless ad-hoc networks, there exists strong interdependency between protocol layers, due to the shared wireless medium. Hence we cast the power adaptation (physical layer), scheduling (link layer) and routing (network layer) problems into a joint optimization framework. We analyze this hard non-convex optimization problem, and obtain a dual form consisting of a series of sub-problems. The sub-problem demonstrates the functionalities of the protocol layers and their interaction. We show that the routing problem may be solved by a shortest path algorithm. In the case of ultra wide band (UWB) networks, the power adaptation & scheduling problem is simplified and may be solved. Thus, an algorithmic solution to the joint problem, in the UWB case, is developed. Comparison of results with the previous information theoretic capacity results on UWB networks, demonstrates the importance of this cross-layer optimization framework.