Cross-Layer Protocol Design of a 3G-RNC Simulator

Layering is the dominating design methodology of communication protocol stacks. This architecture is characterized by a stack of protocol layers where each protocol undertakes specific tasks by using the services made available by the layers below it, and providing new services to upper layers. However, by retaining the strictly modular architecture, where each layer keeps its independence and communicates solely with its adjacent layers, the implementation of the protocol stack may have a negative impact on the system performance. Recently, the cross-layer design has been introduced. This paper presents the reference architecture of a commercial 3G radio network controller (RNC) simulator based on cross-layer design done by actively exploiting the dependence between protocol layers to obtain performance gains.