An integrated protocol stack for efficient resources management in wireless networks

The area of ATM multihop radio networks has recently become an issue of interest especially with the growing interest in portable multimedia units. Multimedia communication requires a deterministic delivery of isochronous traffic with predefined QoS requirements. In this paper we propose an integrated protocol stack which provides deterministic delivery bounds and efficiently utilizes channel backwidth. By integrating the access, routing and congestion control protocols, a solution is provided which improves bandwidth utilization, maintains shortest route packet delivery and leads to congestion avoidance. A tractable approximate analytical model is developed and verified for networks with finite storage capacity. For large multihop networks the analytical solution is complemented by simulation. Evaluation shows that the proposed protocol integration yields a significant reduction in end-to-end delay, which together with bounded access time at the channel access level, provide two essential features for the support of isochronous traffic in multihop wireless environments.