Cross-Layer Approach among Physical, MAC and Routing Layer in a Shadowing Environment

Supporting multi-hop communication in Mobile ad Hoc Networks (MANET) is a challenging research area because it requires cooperation between different protocol layers Physical (Phy), medium access control (MAC), routing...). In particular, MAC and routing protocols could be considered mutually cooperative protocol layers. When a route is established, the exposed and hidden terminal problems at MAC layer may decrease the end-to-end performance proportionally with the length of each route. The topology of the network may change rapidly and unpredictability due to node mobility causing unstable links with multiple discontinuities. All these problems will increase especially in a shadowing environment qualified as an environment with important variations in the received signal power. In this paper, we proposed cross-layer designs among physical, MAC and network layers, using Received Signal Strength (RSS) as a cross-layer interaction parameter to provide reliable route discovery, stable links with a strong connectivity, and energy conservation in transmitting data in a shadowing environment.