Improving wireless access control schemes via adaptive power regulation

Two challenging issues for future wireless communication systems are the support of Quality of Service (QoS) and the definition of flexible access schemes to be used in heterogeneous systems (public cellular systems, wireless local area and ad-hoc networks). This paper deals with the class of Radio Resource Control (RRC) based on power regulation, where typical PHY layers parameters (powers, interference, etc.) are combined with upper layers ones to i) increase radio channel utilization; ii) perform admission control of heterogeneous wireless links; iii) maintain negotiated QoS levels expressed as a function of the Signal-to-Interference-Ratio (SIR). In the recent literature power control is mainly employed to dynamically adapt the transmission of concurrent links to the varying system conditions (due to channel quality, mobility) still guaranteeing the perceived QoS. In this framework, we investigate how the design of a suitable power control can be used in the support of traffic requiring some QoS guarantees. The paper presents a paradigm where all the RRC operations are performed in a distributed way, i.e., independently for each link involved in a communication. The distributed approach assures that the strategies are quite flexible to be used both in cellular-like systems and in ad-hoc networks.