A fine-grain partial MAC virtualization to support cross layer design in wireless ad hoc networks

Cross layer approach is a promising technology to satisfy applications' fastidious requirements and maximize the wireless channel usage in wireless ad hoc networks. Existing cross layer architecture either adopts a specific MAC for an application type or does not change the MAC behavior because the MAC is commonly used for all types of applications in a node. MAC virtualization is an appropriate method to associate the MAC behavior with a specific application's requirement without impacting on other types of application. In this paper, we propose a partial MAC virtualization to support cross layer design in wireless ad hoc networks. In the proposed scheme, a MAC scheme is divided into a set of controllable condition variables and common MAC executor. A MAC control manager generates a virtual MAC with a set of controllable condition variables and related state variables. This paper also proposes an interface through which an application or an agent of the application can control the MAC for its own purpose, which allows a cross-layer mechanism for each application in a node. We show the feasibility of the proposed scheme by an example and experiments.