Cross-layer-based modeling for quality of service guarantees in mobile wireless networks

In this article we propose a cross-layer approach to investigate the impact of the physical-layer infrastructure on the data-link-layer QoS performance in mobile wireless networks. At the physical layer, we take the MIMO diversity schemes as well as AMC into account. At the data-link layer, our focus is on how this physical-layer infrastructure influences the real-time multimedia QoS provisioning performance such as delay-bound violation and buffer-overflow probabilities. To achieve this goal, we first model the physical-layer service process as a finite state Markov chain. Based on this FSMC model, we then characterize the QoS performance at the data-link layer using the effective capacity approach, which turns out to be critically important for the statistical QoS guarantees in mobile wireless networks. The numerical and simulation results obtained demonstrate that the proposed cross-layer model can efficiently characterize the interaction between the physical layer infrastructure and upper layer protocols' QoS provisioning performance.