Crosslayer design for medium access control in wireless ad hoc networks

This dissertation focuses on cross layer design for network protocols in wireless ad hoc networks. It studies the relationship between link scheduling at medium access control layer and physical or network layer. Link scheduling is a way of achieving the optimal MAC layer throughput while avoiding collisions. In this dissertation, it is modeled using graph theory concepts based on different interference model. MAC layer is served as an anchoring layer in our cross layer design which can collect physical layer information and provide information to network layer. Cross layer design between MAC layer and physical layer or routing layer can provide better overall system performance.;The dissertation will discuss how the carrier sensing threshold, a physical layer parameter, impact the link scheduling strategy in order to achieve the optimal aggregate throughput at MAC layer. The dissertation will also investigate the joint routing and link scheduling problem using a graph theory based model. Further more, since solving the above joint design problems is usually NP-hard, we propose polynomial solutions for estimating the bounds for network capacity. In an effort to design MAC layer solution for real systems, we propose an opportunistic MAC for multichannel multiradio wireless networks which utilizes multiradio diversity at physical layer as well.