This is the first book that provides readers with a deep technical overview of recent advances in resource management for wireless networks at different layers of the protocol stack. The subject is explored in various wireless networks, such as ad hoc wireless networks, 3G/4G cellular, IEEE 802.11, and Bluetooth personal area networks.
Survey chapters give an excellent introduction to key topics in resource management for wireless networks, while experts will be satisfied by the technical depth of the knowledge imparted in chapters exploring hot research topics.
Following the pattern of the Internet growth in popularity, started in the early 1990s, the current unprecedented expansion of wireless technology promises to have an even greater effect on how people communicate and interact, with considerable socio-economic impact all over the world. The driving force behind this growth is the remarkable progress in component miniaturization, integration, and also developments in waveforms, coding, and communication protocols.
Besides established infrastructure-based wireless networks (cellular, WLAN, satellite) ad-hoc wireless networks emerge as a new platform for distributed applications and for personal communication in scenarios where deploying infrastructure is not feasible. In ad-hoc wireless networks, each node is capable of forwarding packets on behalf of other nodes, so that multi-hop paths provide end-to-end connectivity. The increased flexibility and mobility of ad-hoc wireless networks are favored for applications in law enforcement, homeland defense and military.
In a world where wireless networks become increasingly interoperable with each other and with the high-speed wired Internet, personal communication systems will transform into universal terminals with instant access to variate content and able of handle demanding tasks, such as multimedia and real-time video. With users roaming between networks, and with wide variation in wireless link quality even in a single domain, the communications terminal must continue to provide a level of Quality of Service that is acceptable to the user and conforms to a contracted Service Level Agreement.
Taking these into considerations, the network must provide mechanisms for controlling connection admission, service differentiation, end-to-end communication delay and connection data rate. These functions are different aspects of network resource management that contribute to provisioning of Quality of Service.
For some applications, a critical element is application lifetime - the time the application remains operational before energy reserves at network nodes are depleted and normal operation is hindered. To extend the application lifetime, it is essential to have judicious power management at each node and to employ energy-efficient communication protocols that address the energy efficiency issue at the network scale. Extensive research has been performed over the last few years in the area of effective network resource management, QoS and energy-efficient protocols for wireless networks. This book presents a snapshot of representative work in the field and targets an audience that includes researchers, faculty members, students and other professionals interested in this field.
