Optimal and distributed protocols for cross-layer design of physical and transport layers in MANETs

Abstract

We seek distributed protocols that attain the global optimum allocation of link transmitter powers and source rates in a cross-layer design of a mobile ad hoc network. Although the underlying network utility maximization is nonconvex, convexity plays a major role in our development. We provide new convexity results surrounding the Shannon capacity formula, allowing us to abandon suboptimal high-SIR approximations that have almost become entrenched in the literature. More broadly, these new results can be back-substituted into many existing problems for similar benefit. Three protocols are developed. The first is based on a convexifi-cation of the underlying problem, relying heavily on our ne..