CAREER: Energy-Efficient Protocols for Multimedia Traffic in Ad Hoc Networks

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Support for multiple quality-of-service (QOS) levels in mobile, distributed, packet radionetworks is required for many commercial wireless applications. Mobile radio networks (or adhoc networks) are required in situations where the network itself must be highly mobile andwhere access to a fixed infrastructure of base stations is not available. To meet demands ofportability and low-power operation, it is desirable for a single ad hoc network to service thetraffic demands of a wide range of applications, including examples such as all-informedmulticast voice, real-time video, large file transfers, and interactive web browsing. Each class oftraffic has specific service requirements and these QOS levels must be provided from a mobileand distributed network that operates with battery power only and with very limited bandwidth. The Wireless Communications Program at Clemson University has recognized thatstrong interaction among different protocol layers in ad hoc radio networks is not only desirablebut in fact essential. A single protocol layer cannot guarantee a specific quality of service for atraffic type, but there must be coordination among the routing, queuing, traffic scheduling,congestion control, channel-access, and adaptive-transmission protocols. We have alreadydemonstrated that information from the physical and link layers can be effectively utilized by therouting protocol to dramatically improve the end-to-end network performance and reduce thetotal energy expended by the mobile radios. The proposed research and education plan is basedon our previous results that show that strong coupling among the protocol layers is vital forwireless communications networks that must interconnect highly mobile users and link themreliably to a fixed infrastructure. This career plan is structured to extend previous results throughcollaborative research that is focused on the link and network layers, and to explore a new topicarea by applying the advances discovered in our previous work to new research into theinteraction between the network and transport layers. The proposed career plan is centered on both undergraduate and graduate studentparticipation. The topics are organized so that students with a range of experience levels canmake significant contributions. A key priority of the research plan is to include students with avariety of career goals and motivate them to strive for the highest levels of scientific andengineering excellence throughout their careers. Ample opportunities are planned to encourageand develop promising undergraduate students to pursue graduate school. An importantcomponent of the educational plan is to incorporate research tools in the classroom. Animationtools that illustrate the performance of our distributed protocols have increased ourunderstanding our research and they will prove to be equally valuable in the classroom andlaboratory. Rather than simply reading about networking protocols in a textbook, students willimplement distributed protocols within a discrete event simulation program and see theperformance implications of the various protocols.