Cross-Layer Design for Resilient Communication in Cognitive Mesh Networks

The PhD project described in this proposal will be part of a joint project between Telenor R&I and Simula Research Laboratory which is called SimTel Innovation. SimTel Innovation is focusing on solutions for enhancing the service availability and quality for wireless and mobile terminals in a selected future scenario with third party content providers, heterogeneous terminals and access networks, and multi-hop wireless communication with various node and link capabilities. The PhD project will combine cha llenges from the SimTel project, and take it even further to cognitive networks. Cognitive networks will be characterized by heterogeneous and highly dynamic node and link properties. It is easy to see that for instance advanced multimedia interaction wil l not get the most convenient ride over such networks. Currently, many research groups are focusing on the radio and MAC layers to enable cognitive radio for practical use. However, there is little work on designs for the upper layers in the protocol stac k, and hence the focus of the PhD project will therefore be on cross layer design to enable resilient communication over cognitive mesh networks. A bottom-up design approach will be used to design upper layer protocols and algorithms that take the lower l ayer properties like extreme heterogeneity and dynamics into consideration. Candidate protocols and designs will be implemented and tested in a network simulator. Selected solutions will then be tested with demanding multi-media application in a lab with cognitive mesh nodes. An effective, resilient and scalable cross layer design for cognitive networks will be an important contribution to the society in that more spectrums are utilized, increasing the overall available bandwidth. This is very important d ue to the fact that currently licensed radio spectrums are approaching the limit of available bandwidth. This is even more important in densely populated areas where many users share the same bandwidth.