QoS provision in mobile ad hoc networks with an adaptive cross-layer architecture

Radio resource management and Quality of Service (QoS) provision in Mobile Ad hoc NETworks (MANETs) require the cooperation among different nodes and the design of distributed control mechanisms, imposed by the self-configuring and dynamic nature of these networks. In this context, in order to solve the tradeoff between QoS provision and efficient resource utilization, a distributed admission control is required. This article presents an adaptive admission procedure based on a cross-layer QoS Routing supported by an efficient end-to-end available bandwidth estimation. The proposed scheme has been designed to perform a flexible parameters configuration that allows to adapt the system response to the observed grade of mobility in the environment. The performance evaluation has shown the capability of the proposal to guarantee a soft-QoS provision thanks to a flexible resource management adapted to different scenarios.