CAREER: Efficient Resource Management and Multi-Access Protocols for Bursty Traffic Over Wireless Networks: A Cross-Layer Design Approach

Arizona State University, Scottsdale AZ

Investigators

Abstract

Recent years have witnessed a tremendous growth in the demand for ubiquitous information access. Current wireless networks, however, are still far from meeting this demand. A central problem in the design of wireless systems is how to efficiently transmit bursty multimedia traffic over wireless links. It is expected that developing network-level solutions that take advantage of the interplay between the communication channel and the upper protocol layers would yield significant performance gains. Optimal design across multiple layers opens a new promising area with many design issues unresolved. It is therefore of vital importance to develop theory and methodology that help propel significant advances and lead to revolutionary breakthroughs in this area. In this project, the PI proposes to take a cross-layer design approach to devising a suite of resource allocation and multi-access schemes, aiming to establish a comprehensive framework for transmitting bursty traffic over fading channels. The proposed research is centered around two areas: 1) bursty traffic over CDMA: a key goal of this thrust is to obtain overriding principles for cross-layer optimization of bursty traffic transmissions in interference-limited systems; and 2) "opportunistic" access control for bursty traffic: this thrust aims at a deep understanding of how to exploit traffic information for novel access control in opportunistic communication systems (which are basically TDMA systems equipped with opportunistic scheduling). A common thread encountered throughout is to "exploit" (rather than "combat") traffic burstiness and channel variation. The two thrusts are outlined as follows: 1) Bursty traffic transmission in CDMA networks: Building on the PI's recent finding that the multi-access interference (MAI) is long-range dependent, the PI will a. conduct a comprehensive study on the MAI long-range dependence and identify the predictive MAI structure, and exploit the MAI structure to develop efficient measurement-based interference prediction. The impact of traffic burstiness, fading, and feedback delay will be examined; b. utilize interference prediction to explore efficient resource allocation and access control. 2) Bursty traffic transmission in opportunistic communication systems: The PI will: a. investigate traffic-aided admission control for opportunistic communication systems; b. devise innovative opportunistic scheduling for streaming multimedia to exploit multi-user diversity gain embedded in both channel variation and traffic burstiness.