Application of information theory in wireless networks relying on a cross layer approach

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Future wireless systems are expected to support much higher bit rates at a lower cost, which imposes tremendous pressure on the usage of spectrum. Multiple Input-Multiple Output (MIMO) antenna systems are widely recognized as the key solution to realize the increase in the spectral efficiency required in future wireless networks. In the recent years, research community has paid significant attention to study the Information Theoretic aspects of MIMO wireless networks. Network information theory generalizes Shannon point-to-point (two terminals) communication to systems with more than two terminals. This general framework allows considering transmission of more than one source, and/or over more than one channel. For many years, theoretical studies in this subject have shown potential for realizing high gains over conventional point-to-point communication techniques. However significant effort is needed to improve our understanding of these networks towards bridging the huge gap that currently exists between theory and practice in this emerging field. In addition to the huge computational complexity (which has to be implemented in part at the resource limited mobile unit), many rather unrealistic assumptions are made about the underlying channel and (fast/slow fading) and availability of the channel state information at the transmitters/receivers which should be better understood and tailored to practice. In addition, traditional communication networks have many levels of abstraction where protocol layers are designed as separate modules. More recently, cross layer optimization in communication networks has been widely considered as an attractive approach to improve network performance. The proposed research will address several problems related to the practical application of the above concepts to the design of the future generation of wireless networks, relying on a cross layer optimization. This involves problems in Multiplexing, Co-operative Transmission, studying the fundamental tradeoffs in these networks, Multi-user Diversity, Decentralized networking, and interference management/alignment.