A New Approach to Cooperative Matrix Cross-Layer Networking in Wireless Heterogeneous Domestic Environments

It has been widely argued in scientific literature the inability of current wireless technologies to provide full coverage for the growing performance requirements of modern applications. The situation gets even worse if these technologies coexist in the same frequency band and in a relatively small area with very few or any cooperative policies at all. This is the scenario in an average family home where a variety of devices, enabled with communication interfaces for local and personal area networks, operate in the unlicensed 2.4 GHz ISM Band. In this paper, a set of preliminary ideas concerning a new approach to cross-layer design for cooperative networking in a standard family home are discussed. In the text, the hybrid domestic environment and a general survey on cross-layer design records are first depicted. Next, some new terms and definitions are introduced for clarification, highlighting the matrix design concept as a main contribution to describe the nature of the cross-layer interactions under study. Finally, preliminary ideas regarding the cooperative matrix design proposal are discussed, identifying a set of open challenges and concerns as unsolved questions to face incoming work. The submitted design aims to provide a first step towards a background platform for multiple wireless technologies understanding, with further purposes of managing coexistence in terms of cooperativeness, not only for interferences avoidance, but also in favour of overall performance addressing subjects like QoS, optimal channel utilization and power control.