A cross-layer power allocation scheme for CDMA wireless networks

Cross-layer resource allocation represents an emerging technology to enable efficient resource management and quality of service (QoS) support for wireless networks. In particular, the rapidly rising energy prices and the increasing power consumption levels in current wireless network constitute a major concern for network operators. In this context, we introduce here a cross-layer approach that allows optimization of the overall power resource adaptively for a commercial DS-CDMA wireless network. First, this approach maximizes the network´s utility, as a function of the signal to interference-plus-noise ratio (SINR), by considering adaptively the changes in the three most important network characteristics, that is, the total consumed power, the effective bandwidth and the average user throughput. Then the detector selection and closed-loop power control units are addressed as the main components to reach the required QoS with the lowest power consumption. Simulation results show that substantial utility gains may be achieved by improving the power efficiency in the network.