| The rapid growth of Internet services gives rise to an increasing demand for wireless data services to nomadic or mobile users. The applications are demanding that higher capacity, higher data rates, and advanced multimedia services be supported in the future wireless networks. Many physical layer techniques have been developed for broadband highspeed wireless networks. Orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) and smart antennas are among the most promising techniques. However, most of the current wireless systems inherit the architecture of wire-line system where the OSI ‘layers’ are treated as uncoupled entities. The data link/media-access protocols haven been frequently designed without sufficient regard for design details at the physical layer. Although the layered approach simplifies the protocol design, dealing with dynamic wireless channels entirely at the physical layer leads to inefficient protocols in resource critical wireless networks. Cross layer design and optimization is pronounced. In this work, we address cross-layer design and optimization of the wireless networks utilizing OFDM, smart antenna, and other innovations in the physical and MAC layers that result in significant throughput gains over existing systems in both single-cell and multi-cell setups. |
