3372 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON WIRELESS COMMUNICATIONS, VOL. 7, NO.
9, SEPTEMBER 2008
Cross-Layer Multi-Packet Reception Based Medium
Access Control and Resource Allocation for
Space-Time Coded MIMO/OFDM
Wei Lan (Jennifer) Huang, Member, IEEE, Khaled Ben Letaief, Fellow, IEEE,
and Ying Jun (Angela) Zhang, Member, IEEE
Abstract—In this paper, a cross-layer design framework for
multi-input multi-output (MIMO)/orthogonal frequency divi-
sion multiplexing (OFDM) based wireless local area networks
(WLANs) is proposed. In contrast to conventional systems where
the medium access control (MAC) and physical (PHY) layers are
separately optimized, our proposed methodology jointly designs
a multi-packet reception (MPR) based protocol with adaptive
resource allocation. Specifically, a realistic collision model is
employed by taking into consideration the PHY layer parameters
such as channel information, space-time coded beamforming and
multiuser detection, as well as sub-carrier, bit, and power alloca-
tion. The allocation problem is formulated, so as to maximize the
system throughput, subject to the constraints from both the MAC
and PHY layers. These constraints depend on the results of access
contention, data packets’ length, users’ spatial correlation and
the quality of channel feedback information. An iterative algo-
rithm is then provided to obtain the optimal solution. Simulation
results will show that our proposed approach achieves significant
improvement in system performance such as average throughput
and packet delay, compared with conventional schemes where
cross-layer design and optimization is not used.
Index Terms—Cross-layer design, multi-packet reception,
adaptive resource allocation, multiple access, multi-input multi-
output (MIMO), orthogonal frequency division multiplexing
(OFDM).
I. I NTRODUCTION
I EEE 802.11-based wireless local area networks (WLANs)
[1], [2] are becoming increasingly popular and widely
deployed. However, the conventional WLANs usually operate
far away from the theoretical limits, especially under high
network load. One crucial reason is that these systems are
designed based on a layered approach which is typically
inefficient. In particular, the medium access control (MAC)
protocols are designed without taking into consideration the
Manuscript received June 6, 2006; revised December 19, 2006 and May 18,
2007; accepted June 14, 2007. The associate editor coordinating the review
of this paper and approving it for publication was Y. Ma. This work is
supported in part by the Hong Kong Research Grant Council under Grant
No. HKUST6250/04.
W. L. Huang is with Nokia Research Center, Beijing, P. R. China. She
was with the Dept. of Electronic and Computer Engineering, The Hong Kong
University of Science and Technology, Clear Water Bay, Kowloon, Hong Kong
(e-mail: wlhuang@ieee.org).
K. B. Letaief is with the Dept. of Electronic and Computer Engineering,
The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Kowloon, Hong Kong
(e-mail: eekhaled@ece.ust.hk).
Y. J. Zhang is with the Dept. of Information Engineering, The Chinese
University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong (e-mail: yjzhang@ie.cuhk.edu.hk).
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TWC.2008.060327.
1536-1276/08$25.00 
c 2008 IEEE
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characteristics of the physical (PHY) layer. At the same time,
the PHY-layer resources are usually under-utilized because
no MAC issue is taken into consideration too. As a result,
it is essential for a system designer to develop a cross-layer
approach [3], which can bridge the gap between the MAC
and PHY layers with the ultimate goal of achieving efficient
management of system resources.
The MAC protocols in conventional 802.11 systems em-
ploy a simplistic collision model which only supports one
simultaneous transmission [1], [2]. Such an idealized model
is both optimistic and pessimistic [4]. Optimism is due to
the assumption of error-free reception which ignores channel
effects such as fading and noise, while pessimism results from
the fact that it does not exploit the capability of the PHY layer
to successfully decode multiple packets in the presence of
simultaneous transmissions. Recently, a new standardization
effort, IEEE 802.11n, which aims at a higher throughput by
deploying multiple antennas, has attracted much interest [5].
But its collision model is still essentially unchanged. This
situation motivates well the use of multi-packet reception
(MPR) to resolve collision and increase the network capacity.
However, most of the recent work in the context of MPR is
restricted to ALOHA [4], [6] and is very new in 802.11-like
systems, which are based on a carrier sense multiple access
protocol with collision avoidance (CSMA/CA).
One possible solution for enabling MPR is to deploy
adaptive antenna arrays at the transmitter and receiver ends,
or multi-input multi-out (MIMO) technology so as to allow
space division multiple access (SDMA). A special case of
MIMO is single-input multi-out (SIMO) with single transmit
antenna and multiple receive antennas. Some CSMA protocols
based on SIMO have been proposed in [7], [8]. On the other
hand, orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) is
adopted in most of the current 802.11 systems, for its capabil-
ity to efficiently utilize the limited RF bandwidth and transmit
power in wideband transmission over time-dispersive multi-
path channels [9]. Multiuser OFDM or orthogonal frequency
division multiple access (OFDMA) is another alternative to
achieve MPR. The inherent multi-carrier nature of OFDMA
systems also allow dynamic sub-carrier allocation combined
with adaptive bit loading and power control so that the attain-
able data rates can be improved by exploiting the frequency
as well as multiuser diversity [10], [11], [12]. As such, the
use of MIMO technology combined with OFDM is becoming
 HUANG et al.: CROSS-LAYER MULTI-PACKET RECEPTION BASED MEDIUM ACCESS CONTROL AND RESOURCE ALLOCATION
an attractive solution for future broadband wireless systems.
Although CSMA/SDMA protocols have been investigated in
[7], [8], MPR combined with resource allocation and OFDMA
was not considered in the literature.
The resource allocation problems in MIMO/OFDM systems
have been extensively investigated in recent years (e.g., [13],
[14], [15]). The existing formulations of resource allocation
do not fit well 802.11-like systems and most of them did not
take the MAC issues into consideration [13], [14]. Moreover,
the existing allocation methods are hardly thorough solutions
for multiuser MIMO/OFDM systems. This is due to the
challenges behind the resource allocation problems of such
systems. For example, how to quantify and handle the co-
channel interference is not a trivial task, as this depends
on the transmission scheme and detection technique at the
receiver, the accuracy of channel information, users’ spatial
separability, as well as the transmitted power of all admitted
users. Likewise, how to select the user set for each sub-carrier
usually requires a combinatorial search of optimal solutions,
which makes the allocation prohibitively complicated. Hence,
an allocation algorithm which can tackle such challenges and
obtain the solution for the problem considering both of the
MAC and PHY issues, is obviously of great interest.
In this paper, a cross-layer framework is proposed for
802.11-based MIMO/OFDM systems, which jointly designs
the MPR-based MAC protocol and adaptive resource alloca-
tion. Specifically, the contributions of our work are four folds.
First of all and in contrast to the simplistic collision model
used in conventional WLAN systems, the idea of MPR is
applied by means of request-to-send/clear-to-send (RTS/CTS)-
based protocol along with multiuser detection (MUD) to
resolve the collision problem. To determine the probability of
packets’ retransmission, a more realistic PHY model is used,
which takes into consideration multipath fading, interference,
noise, channel feedback quality, and the transmitter/receiver
design. Second, a critical element in all of the allocation
schemes, namely, the channel state information (CSI), is esti-
mated by exploiting the structure of RTS/CTS frames [16] in
802.11 systems. Due to the time difference between RTS/CTS
and data packets, partially outdated CSI at the transmitter is
assumed and as a result, a transmitter design that combines
space-time coding and beamforming is adopted to tackle
the imperfection of CSI. Third, we formulate the resource
allocation problem by incorporating both of the MAC and
PHY issues such that the system throughput is maximized. To
make this problem tractable, we set up an allocation policy that
indicates under what conditions the users are allowed to share
the same subcarrier. Such decision depends on the correlation
between the spatial signatures of the estimated channels as
well as the channel feedback quality at the transmitter. Finally,
an iterative algorithm is proposed to solve the formulated
problem, and the optimal allocation of the subcarriers, bits
and power is obtained. Numerical results will show that our
cross-layer approach results in a significant improvement in
system performance such as throughput and packet delay.
The rest of this paper is organized as follows. In Section
II, the system model including the frame structure, transmitter
and receiver designs is described. In Section III, we formulate
the optimization problem and the optimal solution is obtained
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3373
via an iterative algorithm. The performance of the proposed
scheme is investigated in Section IV. Finally, this paper is
concluded in Section V.
Throughout this paper, the following notations shall be used.
(.)∗ , (.)T , and (.)H will denote conjugate, transpose and Her-
mitian transpose, respectively. |.| shall stand for the complex

norm, E[.] for the expectation operation, and CN (a, ) for
a complex  Gaussian distribution with mean a and covariance
matrix .
II. S YSTEM M ODEL
We consider the uplink transmission of a MIMO/OFDM
based WLAN system where a number of mobile users or nodes
communicate with one access point (AP). Assume that there
are totally Kt users in the system, each equipped with Mt
transmit antennas and the AP is equipped with Mr receive
antennas. A key feature of our proposed MAC protocol is that
it incorporates adaptive resource allocation into the protocol
through the use of RTS/CTS exchange [16]. As a result,
the MPR capability will not only result from the use of
SDMA, but also OFDMA. In the following, the proposed
protocol operation with the MPR capability, will be presented
in Section II-A. Section II-B will then introduce the structures
of the transmitter and receiver.
A. Protocol Operation
The protocol operation is illustrated in Fig. 1. Before
the users initiate a transmission, they sense the channel to
determine whether there is any pending transmission. If the
medium is found to be idle for an interval that exceeds the
distributed inter-frame space (DIFS), each user chooses a ran-
dom backoff counter value uniformly distributed in the range
of [0, CW-1], where CW stands for contention window.1 After
the random backoff time, the request access is then sent via an
RTS packet, which carries the information of the source and
destination addresses. Since the AP has no priori knowledge
of the transmitting users, a blind detection technique [17] is
applied to estimate the CSI and decode multiple RTS packets
simultaneously. Any other user sensing the RTS will freeze
its backoff timer at once. Note that the RTS packets also
contain the information of the data packets’ length. Upon
receiving the access request, the AP utilizes the information
of the channel and packets’ length to perform the cross-
layer resource allocation of the subcarriers, bits and power.
The parameters of the space-time-coded beamformers (which
will be introduced in Section II-B 1)) are also computed at
the same time. After a short inter-frame space (SIFS), the
access grant signals are then broadcast via a CTS packet
to notify the specified users of the allocation results and
channel information.2 Once the CTS packet is received, the
selected users wait for a SIFS interval and begin to transmit
the data packets. Orthogonal training sequences, which are to
be transmitted in the preamble of the data packets, can be
selected according to the order of the received user addresses
in the CTS packet. When the data transmission is finished, the
1 CW is maintained in units of slot and is initially set to be CWmin .
2 This is equivalent to providing the space-time-coded beamformer param-
eters instead of the actual channel gains.
 3374
AP executes the allocation algorithm
AP
DIFS
User 1 Busy Medium Backoff
DIFS
User 2 Busy Medium Backoff
M M M M
DIFS
User K Busy Medium Backoff
DIFS
Others Busy Medium Backoff
Fig. 1. Illustration of the protocol operation.
AP checks the received packets. An acknowledgement (ACK)
is then returned to the users with successful data transmissions
after a SIFS interval. We should note that the CSI used for
allocation is estimated upon the reception of the RTS packets,
which may become partially outdated for data transmission
because of the Doppler effect. In this case, the assumption of
partially outdated or erroneous CSI is required in our work.
It is assumed that the AP can successfully receive the
RTS packets if and only if the number of users which are
simultaneously sending RTS packets does not exceed the
number of receive antennas. As a result, the number of
admitted users K, which can be supported simultaneously, is
no larger than Mr . In particular, the admitted users are those
who simultaneously choose the minimum backoff time. If
collision occurs, i.e., when the number of users simultaneously
sending RTS packets exceeds Mr , the contention window is
doubled for each retransmission until it reaches a maximum
value CWmax . Alternatively, if a packet error is detected at the
AP and an ACK is not received within ACKtimeout period,
retransmission is also required. Upon successful transmission
of a packet, CW is reset to CWmin .
B. Transmitter and Receiver Structures
During the RTS transmission, conventional space-time cod-
ing is employed at the transmitter and accordingly blind
detection is applied at the receiver for receiving multiple
RTS packets. Upon successfully decoding the RTS packets,
the AP can identify the senders and inform them of the
orthogonal training sequences which will be used during the
data transmission phase. As a result, the CSI is estimated in
the preamble of data frames, with which MUD techniques
can be adopted to separate the multiple data packets at the
AP. In the following, we focus on the configurations of the
transmitter and receiver during the data packets’ transmission,
which are given in Fig. 2 and Fig. 3, respectively. Assume
that the frequency band is divided into N subcarriers. The
serial data stream of user k is transformed into a number of
parallel branches by de-multiplexing. To form one space-time-
coded OFDM block, we pair two consecutive OFDM symbols.
Recall that the information of the allocation results is sent from
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IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON WIRELESS COMMUNICATIONS, VOL. 7, NO. 9, SEPTEMBER 2008
Includes the allocation results and CSI
SIFS SIFS SIFS
CTS ACK
SIFS SIFS SIFS
RTS Data Transmission
SIFS SIFS SIFS
RTS Data Transmission
M M
SIFS SIFS SIFS
RTS Data Transmission
Freeze Backoff Timer
the AP to the receivers of mobile users via a CTS packet.
Depending on the number of bits and power assigned to each
subcarrier, the adaptive modulator will use a corresponding
QAM modulation scheme. A space-time-coded beamformer,
which will be introduced in Section II-B 1), is then applied
for each subcarrier. The resultant symbols are transformed into
the time domain samples by inverse fast Fourier transform
(IFFT). A Guard interval is then added and these samples are
transmitted through frequency selective fading channels to the
AP.
At the receiver, the guard interval is removed and the
samples are transformed back into the frequency domain by
the FFT block. With the knowledge of the channels and the
space-time-coded beamformers for different users, MUD is
applied to suppress the multi-access interference (MAI) and
jointly estimate the transmitted signals for all users. The
subcarrier, bit and power allocation information is used to
configure the MUD, as will be described in Section II-B 2).
1) Partial CSI and Space-Time-Coded Beamformer: There
are two key techniques that have been proposed in the
literature for exploiting transmit antenna arrays: Space-time
coding and transmit beamforming. These two strategies are
based on two different and extreme assumptions regarding
the channel feedback available at the transmitter. Space-time
coding requires no feedback, whereas conventional beamform-
ing requires accurate feedback. Clearly, the former is too
pessimistic and the latter is rarely valid, and we expect that
a good transmitter design would be a combination of space-
time coding and beamforming [19], [20], [21]. In this paper,
we focus on the channel mean feedback, where the spatial
fading channels are modeled as Gaussian random variables
with non-zero mean and white covariance conditioned on
the channel feedback. This channel model can accommodate
different types of partial CSI, such as outdated CSI caused
by feedback delay, and uncertain CSI induced by channel
estimation, prediction or feedback errors.
In the proposed system, the CSI, which is assumed to be
perfectly estimated, is obtained upon the reception of the RTS
packets. However, due to the time difference between the RTS
and data packets, such CSI will be partially outdated compared
to the true channel information. As a result, the assumption
 HUANG et al.: CROSS-LAYER MULTI-PACKET RECEPTION BASED MEDIUM ACCESS CONTROL AND RESOURCE ALLOCATION 3375

Control information
from the BS

Estimated
partial CSI

Parallel-to-
Power loading and serial and #1
M-QAM adaptive ⎡ s1[1] ⎤
⎢ ⎥
2D beamformer IFFT add
.
modulation for 1th
.
⎣ s2 [1]⎦ for 1th subcarrier
.
guard
DEMULTIPLEXING .
subcarrier
. interval
.
. .
Data stream
. . .
of user k
. .
. . .
Power loading and
M-QAM adaptive
.
⎡ s1[ N ] ⎤
2D beamformer
Parallel-to-
serial and # Mt
⎢ ⎥
for Nth add
modulation for Nth ⎣ s 2 [ N ]⎦ IFFT
subcarrier guard
subcarrier
interval

Fig. 2. Transmitter structure of the kth user for the uplink MIMO/OFDM.

Subcarrier, bit and power

allocation information

Remove
guard interval MUD Data stream of user 1
#1
FFT #1
and
. serial-to-parallel
. .
. . . . .
. . . . .
. .
Extension
Remove
#Mr Removing
guard interval MR
MUD
and FFT Data stream of user K
and C
serial-to- #N
serial-to-parallel
parallel

Fig. 3. Receiver structure (at the AP) for the uplink MIMO/OFDM.

of partially outdated CSI and associated transmitter design are where ξ denotes the correlation coefficient between the true
required in our system. Specifically, for sub-carrier n and user channel and estimated channel in the time domain while σh2
k, the Mr × Mr MIMO channel is modeled as is the total energy for all FIR channels of all the users. When
the Doppler effect is considered, ξ depends on the Doppler
H[n, k] = H̄[n, k] + Ξ[n, k], (1) frequency fd normalized by the time difference tΔ [18]. That
where H[n, k] is the conditional mean of H[n, k] is, ξ = J0 (2πfd tΔ ), where J0 (·) is the zeroth order Bessel
given the feedback information Hf [n, k], and function of the first kind.
2
Ξ[n, k]∼CN (0Mr ×Mt , Mt σε [n, k]IMr ) is the associated Usually there is no information exchange between different
zero-mean perturbation matrix. The deterministic pair users. As a result, each user designs the space-time-coded
(H̄[n, k], σ2 [n, k]) parameterizes the partially outdated CSI beamformer according to its own channel independently, with-
and the variance σ2 [n, k] reflects the quality of the CSI. out taking into consideration other mobile-to-AP links. In
When the FIR channels {hμν [k]}M t ,Mr
μ=1,ν=1 between different our algorithm, we adopt the space-time-coded beamformer
transmit and receive antenna pairs are independent and the L as proposed in [18] to configure each user’s transmitter.
taps {hμν [l, k]}L l=1 in hμν [k] are uncorrelated, we have This space-time-coded beamformer is briefly described in the
 f 
H
E H [n, k]H [n, k] following. Since the transmitter configuration is similar for all
ξ= , and σε2 [n, k] = (1−|ξ|2 )σh2 , ∀n, k, users and sub-carriers, we focus on user k and sub-carrier n
E [H[n, k]H [n, k]]
H
(2) only. For brevity, the square bracket [n, k] is dropped for the

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 3376
∗
v1,1
δ1
⊗ (CCI) make these problems difficult to be solved. To deal
.
vM∗ t ,1
⊗ with this, the authors in [13] proposed a grouping approach,
.
.
.
s1 , s2 Space Time ⊗ ∗
Block v 1,2
δ2
⊗
Coding
.
⊗ vM∗ t ,2
.
.
.
⊗ In particular, the obtained solution is suboptimal because the
Fig. 4. Structure of space-time-coded beamformer.
moment.
The structure of the space-time-coded beamformer is de-
picted in Fig. 4. The modulated symbols s1 and s2 are used to
generate the Alamouti space-time matrix.3 Splitting the trans-
mit power with percentages δ1 , δ2 results in δ1 P for the first
basis-beam and δ2 P for the second basis-beam. The power-
loaded symbols
 ∗ are then multiplied
T by two
 beamforming
tors v1∗ = v1,1 ∗
, · · · , vM t ,1
and v ∗
2 = v ∗
1,2 , · · · , v ∗
Mt ,2
respectively. The key problem is how to adjust (v1 , v2 , δ1 , δ2 )
to optimize the average BER performance. Such optimization
can be performed according to [18]. Let d2 denote the scaled
square Euclidean distance for the constellation, which is a
function of the power loading P and the number of loaded
bits b [18, Eqn. (11)]. A threshold d20 will then be required to
achieve a target BERt [18, Eqns. (23) & (25)].
2) Multiuser Detector: In our system, multiple users can
transmit on the same sub-carriers and the superimposed sig-
nals can be separated at the receiver using multiple-antenna
techniques. For each sub-carrier, the receiver aims to estimate
the transmitted modulated symbols from different users. The
sub-carrier allocation information is then used to identify the
corresponding users assigned to this sub-carrier. With the
transmitter design in Section II-B 1), the proposed architecture
can be viewed as a space-time block coded (STBC) system
where each symbol is transmitted through a beam. As a result,
the MUDs which were originally designed for multiuser STBC
systems can be applied to jointly detect the transmitted signals
for different users. Specifically, we assume that the maximum-
likelihood (ML) MUD [22] is adopted in our system, which is
the optimal receive architecture that maximizes the posteriori
probability. Other types of MUDs such as zero-forcing (ZF),
minimum mean-square error (MMSE), parallel interference
cancellation (PIC) and successive interference cancellation
(SIC), can be also deployed at the receiver with a reduced
complexity. For further details of these techniques, interested
readers are referred to [22], [23], [24].
III. M ULTIUSER A DAPTIVE R ESOURCE A LLOCATION
In this section, we shall introduce the problem formulation
and allocation algorithm based on the system described in the
previous section. Recently, the resource allocation problems
have been extensively studied in the context of OFDM systems
3 Without loss of generality, the Alamouti scheme is used throughout this
paper.
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IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON WIRELESS COMMUNICATIONS, VOL. 7, NO. 9, SEPTEMBER 2008
#1 with multiple antennas. As mentioned earlier, the challenges
behind SDMA and the existence of co-channel interference
⊗
which divides all the users into groups by guaranteeing low
.
.
interference between any pair of users from different groups.
.
. # Mt As a result, the multiuser joint resource allocation problem is
reduced to a simple single-user optimization problem. How-
ever, such strategy only works when the correlations of the
⊗
users’ channel matrices are the same for all the sub-carriers.
users from the same group cannot share the sub-carriers even
if they are highly separated. Another allocation algorithm was
proposed in [14] based on sequential insertion of spatially
separable users. The basic idea is to assign each user to an
appropriate sub-carrier by evaluating the incurred rate benefit
of the allocation. However, this algorithm is heuristic and
cannot be applied when partial CSI is assumed.
In this paper and in contrast to previous works, a cross-layer
approach is developed to maximize the system throughput. To
achieve this, we select the optimal user combination among all
vec-
T the admissible combinations for each sub-carrier and allocate
,
the bits and power based on partially outdated CSI. In the
following, we firstly investigate the influence of users’ sepa-
ration on the allocation strategy. Such allocation strategy aims
to indicate the condition under which the users are allowed
to share the same sub-carrier. A resource allocation problem
is then formulated by considering both of the MAC and PHY
issues. Finally, an allocation algorithm is proposed to obtain
the optimal solution.
A. Users’ Separability
The allocation in MIMO/OFDM systems includes the se-
lection of the users on each subcarrier, as well as the bits,
and power assignment for each user. A good allocation
strategy should prevent the users of low separability from
being assigned into the same sub-carriers because the resultant
high interference will greatly reduce the system capacity.
To achieve this and make the allocation problem tractable,
we dynamically control the user assignment according to
the users’ separability such that the mutual interference can
be substantially avoided. Usually the users’ separability is
determined by the correlation of the channel matrices between
the users. However, only partially outdated CSI is available in
our system. As a result, we shall investigate the performance
with different channel correlations as well as different channel
feedback qualities.
We begin by giving the definition of the channel correla-
tion. Let the channel matrices Hk1 , Hk2 of user k1 , k2 be
decomposed into
Hk1 = Uk1 Λk1 VkH1 and Hk2 = Uk2 Λk2 VkH2 . (3)
In the case of perfect CSI, the space-time-coded beamformer
is reduced to a conventional beamformer. Accordingly, the
receive-antenna weight vectors uk1 and uk2 are equal to the
first column vectors of Uk1 and Uk2 . The channel correlation
which depends on the receive-antenna weight vectors, is
defined by  
ρk1 ,k2 = uH 
k1 uk2 . (4)
 HUANG et al.: CROSS-LAYER MULTI-PACKET RECEPTION BASED MEDIUM ACCESS CONTROL AND RESOURCE ALLOCATION
−1
10
Single User Bound
MLD
−2
10
ξ=0.6
BER
ξ=0.8
−3
10
ξ=1
−4
10
0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7
ρ
Fig. 5. System performance versus the correlation ρ under different values
of channel feedback quality ξ, with QPSK signaling when Es /N0 =4dB.
Next we aim to specify the condition under which the users
can be assigned to the same sub-carrier without interfering
with each other. We shall show the influence of ρ as defined by
Eqn. (4) on our system. For brevity, we discard the subscript
(k1 , k2 ) in the following.
Fig. 5 presents the performance of the ML MUD receiver
as a function of ρ under different values of channel feedback
quality ξ as defined in (2). Firstly, we can see that the single
user BER bound increases when ξ decreases. On the other
hand, the value of ρ has an important influence on the BER
performance. Moreover, the range of ρ within which the BER
using MUD techniques is very close to the single user bound,
becomes smaller as ξ decreases. However, the BER curves
become smoother. This shows that to decide whether the users
can be assigned to the same sub-carrier or not, one need
to consider both values of ξ and ρ. Let ξth and ρth denote
two thresholds, then two users are admissible in the same
subcarrier if and only if ξ > ξth and ρ < ρth . This conclusion
is not surprising, because when the channel feedback quality
ξ is low, the correlation of the actual channels cannot be
guaranteed given the outdated channel information.
2
K
B. Problem Formulation
Based on the above results, the system can be considered
to be interference-free as we shall control the assignment of
sub-carriers so that the correlation between each pair of users
is lower than a threshold ρth . The value of ρth is determined
K
K
according to the channel feedback quality ξ as well as the
MUD architecture used at the receiver. According to this
policy, we can define the admissibility of each combination
of users. In this paper, each combination corresponds to a
subset of users. Hence, there are a total of 2k combinations.
For example, assume that K = 4. A total of 16 combinations
from (0,0,0,0) to (1,1,1,1) can be obtained. Each combination
corresponds to a user set where the value 1 or 0 indicates
whether the corresponding user is an element of such set
or not. A combination is admissible if and only if in the
corresponding user subset, we cannot find a pair of users with
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3377
a correlation higher than ρth . Note that the channel feedback
quality ξ is an indirect parameter for checking the admissible
combinations and clearly play a role in determining the value
of ρth . Specifically, we define 1i,n as the admissibility index
for the ith combination on the nth sub-carrier. That is,

1 ith combination is admissible on the nth subcarrier
1i,n =
0 else.
(5)
For example, consider a four-user scenario with ρth = 0.5.
Assume that the correlation matrix on sub-carrier n is given
by
⎡ ⎤
1 0.6 0.3 0.7
⎢ 0.6 1 0.2 0.4 ⎥
ℵ=⎢ ⎣ 0.3 0.2 1 0.3 ⎦ .
⎥ (6)
0.8 0.9
0.7 0.4 0.3 1
In this case, 16,n = 1, which implies that the 6th combination,
i.e., (0,1,0,1) representing the set containing user 2 and user
4, is admissible. Likewise, 112,n = 0 implies that the combi-
nation (1,0,1,1) is inadmissible, since user 1 and user 4 cannot
be assigned to the same sub-carrier.
Next we shall formulate our problem by taking into con-
sideration all admissible combinations of users. Assume that
the AP successfully receives RTS packets from K users. Our
target is to allocate the subcarriers, bits and power such that
these packets can be transmitted within a minimum airtime.
Usually, minimizing the transmission time is equivalent to
maximizing the data rate. From a physical layer point of view,
our objective can be set to be maximizing the total data rate
given the QoS requirements and total power constraint Ptotal .
However, this may not be the case if we jointly consider more
issues in the upper layers. For example, different users may
have packets with different lengths, which are determined by
the characteristics of the applications. The data transmission
time is dominated by the user which requires the maximum
number of OFDM symbols. In such case, maximizing the total
date rate cannot achieve our target directly. As a result, an
additional constraint is required such that the allocated data
rates within each OFDM symbol are proportional to the users’
packet length. Mathematically, our optimization problem can
then be formulated as follows:
K
N
max 1i,n βi,n fk,i,n (Pk,i,n ) (7a)
βi,n ∈[0,1]
n=1 i=1 k=1
Pk,i,n ∈[0,∞)
subject to4
2
N
βi,n Pk,i,n = Ptotal , (7b)
n=1 i=1 k=1
2
K
βi,n = 1 ∀n, (7c)
i=1
4 To limit the interference to the other Basic Service Sets (BSSs) or neigh-
boring systems, and compare different schemes under the same transmission
power condition, we use the total power constraint in this paper (Eqn. (7b)).
However, it can be easily extended to the case of individual power constraints
by applying a similar technique in the allocation algorithm.
 3378 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON WIRELESS COMMUNICATIONS, VOL. 7, NO. 9, SEPTEMBER 2008

K
 
N 2
inequalities5 . That is,
1i,n βi,n fk,i,n (Pk,i,n )
n=1 i=1 Rk
= ∀k = 1, · · · , K−1. 
N 
2 K
 
N 2K
Rk+1 1i,n βi,n fk,i,n (Pk,i,n )
1i,n βi,n fk+1,i,n (Pk+1,i,n ) Rk
n=1 i=1
n=1 i=1
(7d)
≤

N 
2K   R[k+1]K
In the above equations, Rk denotes the packet length of user 1i,n βi,n f[k+1]K ,i,n P[k+1]K ,i,n
n=1 i=1
k. Also βi,n is defined as
k = 1, · · · , K. (12)

1 ith combination is chosen in subcarrier n Here [·]K represents the modulus based on K with 1 ≤ [·]K ≤
βi,n =
0 else. K. For example, [−1]K = K −1, [0]K = K, and [K + 1]K =
(8) 1.
To make the problem tractable, βi,n is relaxed to be a real
number within the interval [0,1] in (7a). The real-valued βi,n
C. Allocation Algorithm
can be interpreted as the time sharing factor for the ith com-
bination on the nth sub-carrier. Specifically, assume that the We note that fk,i,n (Pk,i,n ) is a concave function. However,
number of OFDM symbols required to transmit the data frame the objective function βi,n fk,i,n (Pk,i,n ) in (7a) may not be
is Ns , then the ith combination is assigned to the nth sub- concave in (βi,n , Pk,i,n ). To solve this problem, we let ck,i,n =
carrier for a duration of Ns βi,n OFDM symbols. For example, Pk,i,n βi,n and rewrite (7a)-(7d) as
consider 4 users and let us focus on the 1st sub-carrier. The 2 K  

N K
ck,i,n
data frame contains Ns = 40 OFDM symbols. Moreover, we max 1i,n βi,n fk,i,n (13a)
assume that the 4th combination ((0,0,1,1), including user 3 βi,n ∈[0,1]
n=1 i=1 k=1
βi,n
ck,i,n ∈[0,∞)
and user 4) and the 13th combination ((1,1,0,0), including
user 1 and user 2) share this sub-carrier with β4,1 = 0.4, and subject to
K
β13,1 = 0.6. In such case, user 3 and user 4 will occupy this 2
N K

sub-carrier of the first 16 OFDM symbols while that of the ck,i,n = Ptotal , (13b)
remaining 24 OFDM symbols will be shared by user 1 and n=1 i=1 k=1

user 2. On the other hand, fk,i,n (Pk,i,n ) is the rate function 2

K

for user k of the ith combination on sub-carrier n, given the βi,n = 1 ∀n, (13c)
allocated power Pk,i,n . Assume that adaptive M-QAM is used, i=1
then given the target bit error rate BERt and the transmit
power P , the number of bits that can be transmitted within 
N 
2 K  
ck,i,n
each symbol is approximated as [25] 1i,n βi,n fk,i,n βi,n
n=1 i=1 Rk

N 
2K c  ≤ R[k+1]
  [k+1]K ,i,n K
1.5 · P 1i,n βi,n f[k+1]K ,i,n βi,n
log2 M = log2 1 + , (9) n=1 i=1
d20
k = 1, · · · ,K. (13d)
where d20 (see Section II-B 1)) can be obtained in [18, Eqns. It can be easily shown that βi,n fk,i,n (ck,i,n /βi,n ) is con-
(23) & (25)]. For brevity, let cave within βi,n ∈ [0, 1] and ck,i,n ≥ 0. On the other hand,
1i,n does not change the concavity of the objective function.
1.5 The Lagrangian is obtained as
γ= . (10)
d20 
N 2K  K  
c
L= 1i,n βi,n fk,i,n βk,i,n
i,n

n=1 i=1 k=1   K 
For a specific user k and sub-carrier n, γk,n represents N 2K
K N 
2
the equivalent channel condition. Then, the rate function −λ ck,i,n − Ptotal − tn βi,n − 1
fk,i,n (Pk,i,n ) is obtained as 
n=1 i=1 k=1 n=1
 i=1

K N 2K  
c
 − uk 1i,n βi,n fk,i,n βk,i,n
i,n
· R[k+1]K
log2 (1 + γk,n Pk,i,n ) k ∈ φi k=1
n=1 i=1 
fk,i,n (Pk,i,n ) = (11) 2K c 
0 k∈/ φi , 
K N 
[k+1]K ,i,n
+ uk 1i,n βi,n f[k+1]K ,i,n βi,n · Rk ,
k=1 n=1 i=1
where φi denotes the set of users contained in the ith com- (14)
bination. Note that in the above problem formulation, both where λ and tn are the Lagrange multipliers for the constraints
1i,n and fk,i,n (Pk,i,n ) depend on the transmitter and receiver (13b), (13c), and uk are the Karush-Kuhn-Tucker (KKT)
structures, because the channel correlation threshold ρth and multipliers for the constraint (13d), respectively. A set of KKT
the equivalent channel condition γk,n are decided based on conditions for the optimal solution (c∗k,i,n , βi,n
∗
) can then be
the proposed system which is described in Section II. obtained as follows [26]:
The constraint (7d) includes (K −1) independent equalities. 5 Since if a ≤ a ≤ · · · ≤ a
1 2 K ≤ a1 , it follows that a1 = a2 = · · · =
Alternatively, this constraint can be replaced by K dependent aK .

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 HUANG et al.: CROSS-LAYER MULTI-PACKET RECEPTION BASED MEDIUM ACCESS CONTROL AND RESOURCE ALLOCATION 3379

∗
If βi,n  0, we have
= and

  (λ0 )
Qk,i,n 
∂ck,i,n 
∂L
(ck,i,n ,βi,n )=(c∗
 ∗  k,i,n ,βi,n )
∗
 ∗  = 1 − uk R[k+1]K + u[k−1]K R[k−1]K fk,i,n (gk,i,n (λ0 ))

= 1i,n fk,i,n β ∗
ck,i,n
− λ − uk 1i,n R[k+1]K fk,i,n  ck,i,n
∗
−gk,i,n (λ0 )λ0 .
i,n  ∗  βi,n
(21)
 ck,i,n
+u[k−1]K 1i,n R[k−1]K fk,i,n β ∗ To satisfy the constraint (13c), we let
 i,n
   c∗ 
=1i,n 1 − uk R[k+1]K + u[k−1]K R[k−1]K fk,i,n k,i,n
∗ βi∗ ,n = 1 and βi,n
∗
= 0 for all i = i , (22)
 βi,n
< 0 c∗k,i,n = 0
−λ , where
= 0 c∗k,i,n > 0  
(15a)
i = arg max Gi,n (λ0 ), and ψn = i : arg 1i,n = 1 .
and
 i∈ψn i
(23)
∂L 
∂βi,n (c ∗ ∗ Here ψn denotes the set of admissible combinations in the nth
k,i,n ,βi,n )=(ck,i,n ,βi,n )
K 
  c∗ sub-carrier.
= 1i,n · 1 − uk R[k+1]K fk,i,n ( βk,i,n ∗ ) Given the values of (λ, u1 , u2 , · · · , uK ), we can obtain
i,n
k=1
 
K  the optimal solutions of (c∗k,i,n , βi,n ∗
). However, the values of
c∗ c∗
− βk,i,n
∗

fk,i,n ( βk,i,n
∗ ) + 1i,n uk Rk f[k+1]K ,i,n (15b) (λ, u1 , u2 , · · · , uK ) are also required to be adjusted in order
i,n i,n
c∗ c∗
k=1
c∗
 to satisfy the KKT conditions (13b), (13d), (15d) and (15e).
[k+1]K ,i,n [k+1]K ,i,n  [k+1]K ,i,n
( β∗ )− ∗ f [k+1] ( ∗ ) The proposed iterative algorithm, which obtains the values of
i,n ∗
βi,n K ,i,n βi,n
> 0 βi,n =1 (λ, u1 , u2 , · · · , uK ), is described as follows:
−tn ∗
= 0 βi,n ∈ (0, 1). Step 1: Initialize all the KKT multipliers u1 = u2 = · · · =
∗
Otherwise, if βi,n = 0, then uK = 0 and λ to be a very small value.
Step 2: Based on the current values of (λ, u1 , u2 , · · · , uK ),
∂L ∂L compute the temporarily optimal solutions of (c∗k,i,n , βi,n ∗
)
ck,i,n + βi,n ≤0
∂ck,i,n ∂βi,n using Eqns. (16)-(23).
for all βi,n ∈ (0, 1] and ck,i,n > 0. (15c) Step 3: Examine whether the KKT condition (13b) is
satisfied or not. If yes, go to the next step. If not, adjust the
Moreover, the other KKT conditions include value of λ and repeat Step 2 using the updated value of λ,
 

K N  2K   until the total power constraint (13b) is satisfied.
ck,i,n
uk 1i,n βi,n fk,i,n βi,n · R[k+1]K Step 4: Examine whether the KKT conditions (13d), (15d)
k=1
 n=1 i=1
  and (15e) are all satisfied or not. If yes, stop. If one or
N  2K c 
− 1i,n βi,n f[k+1]K ,i,n [k+1]K ,i,n
· Rk more conditions are not satisfied, iteratively search the values
of (u1 , u2 , · · · , uK ). In each iteration, choose the user k ◦
βi,n
n=1 i=1
= 0, satisfying
(15d) k ◦ = arg max Ek+ (24)
uk ≥ 0, k = 1, · · · , K. (15e) k

as well as the constraints (13b), (13c) and (13d). where


We consider two cases. When 1i,n = 0, we can easily obtain 0 ifEk ≤ 0
Ek+ = max (0, Ek ) = (25)
∗ Ek ifEk > 0
βi,n = 0 and c∗k,i,n = 0, ∀k. (16)
and
When 1i,n = 1, we can conclude from (15a) and (15c) that

N 
2 K  
c∗k,i,n = βi,n
∗
gk,i,n (λ0 ), (17) 1i,n βi,n fk,i,n
ck,i,n
βi,n
n=1 i=1
where Ek =
  Rk
λ  2K
N  c 
−1 [k+1]K ,i,n
gk,i,n (λ) = fk,i,n 1i,n βi,n f[k+1]K ,i,n
1 − uk R[k+1]K + u[k−1]K R[k−1]K n=1 i=1
βi,n
− (26)
and R[k+1]K

λ0 = λ gk,i,n (λ) ≥ 0 else   Search the value of uk◦ using the bi-section method in order
(l)
1 − uk R[k+1]K + u[k−1]K R[k−1]K fk,i,n (0) . to make Ek◦ = 0. Specifically, set the initial lower bound uk◦
(18) to be the current value uk◦ and the initial upper bound
On the other hand, it follows from (15b) and (15c) that
 (u) 1 − (λ · ln 2/γkmax
◦ ) + u[k◦ −1]K R[k◦ −1]K
∗ 0 tn > Gi,n (λ0 ) uk ◦ = , (27)
βi,n = (19) R[k◦ +1]K
1 tn < Gi,n (λ0 ),
where where γkmax
◦ = max γk◦ ,n , which denotes the best channel
∀n
Gi,n (λ0 ) = Qk,i,n (λ0 ), (20) gain for user k ◦ among all the subcarriers. The initial upper
(u)
k∈φi bound uk◦ is set so that c∗k,i,n = 0 for all n. In such case,

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 3380 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON WIRELESS COMMUNICATIONS, VOL. 7, NO. 9, SEPTEMBER 2008

100
Ek◦ < 0. As a result, the correct value of uk◦ which results Proposed Scheme
(l) (u)
in Ek◦ = 0 should be between uk◦ and uk◦ . 90 Physical Layer Optimization
(l) (u) Fixed Allocation
(m) (u +u ) (m)
Set uk◦ = k◦ 2 k◦ and repeat Step 2 using uk ◦ . 80

Average Number of OFDM Symbols/Packet

If Ek◦ > 0, set
(l) (m) 70
uk ◦ = uk ◦ . (28)
60
Else, if Ek◦ < 0, set
50
(u) (m)
uk ◦ = uk ◦ . (29)
40

Repeat the bi-section search procedure until Ek◦ = 0. 30

Switch to another user according to (24), and repeat the
iterative procedure until the KKT conditions (13d), (15d) and 20

(15e) are all satisfied. 10

Step 5: Repeat Step 3 and Step 4.
Note that in the bi-section search procedure of Step 4, it 0
5 10 15 20 25 30

may happen that we cannot find a value of uk◦ to satisfy the SNR per subcarrier (dB)

condition Ek◦ = 0. The searching may then oscillate between

Fig. 6. Average number of OFDM symbols per packet required by different
the two cases Ek◦ < 0 and Ek◦ > 0, because the two schemes.
combinations may alternatively occupy the same sub-carrier.
This implies that the two combinations have the same values
of G (see Eqn. 20) on this sub-carrier given the critical value
compare the required average number of OFDM symbols per
of uk◦ . In such case, the sharing factor βi,n is required to take
packet, achieved by our proposed scheme as well as two other
values within the interval (0,1). Specifically, we assume that
schemes. A case of four users is studied. The first scheme
there are two combinations i1 and i2 , sharing the same sub-
used for comparison is the one that maximizes the raw data
carrier n◦ . If only the combination i1 is chosen, the resultant
rate from a physical-layer point of view, but without the
total rates per OFDM symbol for user k ◦ and user [k ◦ + 1]K
consideration of packet issues in the upper layers, i.e., without
are denoted as Sk◦ and S[k◦ +1]K , respectively. Alternatively,
the constraint (7d) from the original problem. This scheme is
if only the combination i2 is chosen, the resultant total rates
referred to as Physical-Layer Optimization. The second one
per OFDM symbol are changed to Sk ◦ and S[k 
◦ +1] . Then,
K is referred to as Fixed Allocation, which adopts frequency-
the sharing factors for the two combinations can be obtained
division multiple access (FDMA) and fixed modulation based
as follows:

on conventional beamforming. The conventional beamforming
Rk◦ S[k ◦ +1] − R[k◦ +1]K Sk ◦ can be obtained by setting δ1 = 1 and δ2 = 0. On the
βi1 ,n◦ = K
 
R[k◦ +1]K (Sk◦ − Sk ◦ ) − Rk◦ S[k◦ +1]K − S[k  other hand, the number of OFDM symbols per packet is
◦ +1]
K defined as the number of OFDM symbols required for data
(30)
transmission divided by the number of packets contained
and
in this data frame. Recall that the duration of each data
R[k◦ +1]K Sk◦ −Rk◦ S[k◦ +1]K
βi2 ,n◦ =   frame is determined by the user which requires the maximum
R[k◦ +1]K (Sk◦ −Sk ◦ )−Rk◦ S[k◦ +1]K −S[k

◦ +1]
K number of OFDM symbols. A four-user case is considered.
(31)
The transmit SNR (signal-to-noise ratio) per sub-carrier is
Further details of the derivation are given in Appendix I.
defined as SN R = PT otal /(N · N0 ) where N0 denotes the
noise power. Without loss of generality, we let N0 = 1.
IV. N UMERICAL R ESULTS AND D ISCUSSIONS
From this figure, it can be easily seen that the number
A. Simulation Settings and Performance Comparisons of OFDM symbols required by our proposed approach is
We shall consider an OFDM system with 64 sub-carriers much less than that of the other two schemes, throughout
over a 20 MHz band. The wireless channels are modeled as the range of SNR considered. This demonstrates that, our
six-path Rayleigh fading channels with an exponential power scheme can always achieve a throughput improvement and
delay profile and a root mean square (RMS) delay spread of more efficiently utilize the resources. We also notice that using
300ns. We also assume that the number of transmit antennas Fixed Allocation or Physical-Layer Optimization, the required
Mt equipped at each mobile is equal to 2 and that the number number of OFDM symbols may increase to infinity in the low
of receive antennas Mr is 4 at the AP. A target BERt of SNR region. This is not surprising because Fixed Allocation is
10−6 is chosen to maintain a low probability of packet error typically inefficient, which may result in zero allocation with
and retransmission. The feedback quality ξ (as defined in (2)) a low total power budget. While in the case of Physical-Layer
which is determined by the normalized Doppler frequency, Optimization, some users with bad channel conditions may
is usually 0.8 or higher [27]. As a result, ξ is assumed to be turned off, so as to maximize the sum of all users’ data
be 0.8 (fd tΔ = 0.15) at the transmitters and correspondingly rates. As a result, the required number of OFDM symbols
we set ρth = 0.4 in our simulations. Likewise, the packet is dominated by these turned-off users and consequently will
length (including the payload and MAC header) is uniformly tend to approach infinity. This phenomenon reveals that the
distributed between 100 bytes and 1000 bytes. In Fig. 6, we optimization within a single layer may not be efficient. In

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 HUANG et al.: CROSS-LAYER MULTI-PACKET RECEPTION BASED MEDIUM ACCESS CONTROL AND RESOURCE ALLOCATION 3381

TABLE I
S IMULATION PARAMETERS resource allocation (DRA), and w/o MPR+FRA, respectively.
Another scheme used for comparisons is the one where the AP
SLOT 9 us detects multiple RTS packets but sends CTS to only one user
SIFS 16 us with adaptive resource allocation. This scheme is referred to as
DIFS 34 us
Multiple RTS Reception with Single Data Packet Transmission
(MRSD). Fig. 7 demonstrates the average throughput achieved
PHY Header 20 us
by different methods, as the SNR increases from 5 dB to 30
OFDM Symbol Duration 4 us
dB. A data packet is defined to be successfully received if
CT Stimeout 300 us and only if all the bits in this packet are correctly decoded.
ACKtimeout 300 us The average throughput is then defined as the average number
of packets which are successfully received within a time unit
7
(ms). Because our objective is to demonstrate the advantage of
our proposed cross-layer methodology which jointly designs
6 Proposed Cross−Layer Approach an MPR based protocol with adaptive resource allocation, an
uncoded system is assumed in the simulation. We can see
that our proposed cross-layer approach can always achieve
Throughput (Number of Packets/ms)

5
significant improvement in the average throughput, compared
to all the other schemes. Moreover, MPR+FRA outperforms
4
MRSD and w/o MPR+ DRA in most cases, except in the
low SNR range. This result reveals that MPR plays a more
3
important role compared to DRA as SNR increases, because
the overhead required for the channel access contention can be
2
considerably reduced by scheduling multiple users at a time. A
MPR+FRA
w/o MPR+DRA
close observation of this figure further shows that the average
1
w/o MPR+FRA throughput of w/o MPR schemes appears more stable with
MRSD respect to different SNRs, compared to the schemes using
0
5 10 15 20 25 30
MPR. On the other hand, the throughput gap between the w/o
SNR per subcarrier (dB) MPR+DRA and w/o MPR+FRA schemes becomes narrow in
the high SNR range.
Fig. 7. Comparisons of average throughput under saturated traffic.

B. Impact of Different Network Densities

contrast, more advantages can be exploited through a cross- In the above study, a system with Kt = 20 users was
layer approach. assumed. However, it would be interesting to investigate the
Next we investigate the throughput performance for differ- performance under different network sizes. Fig. 8 compares
ent schemes by incorporating the process of medium access the average throughput of different schemes, as the number of
and contention. The Rayleigh fading is assumed to be quasi- users in the network increases from 5 to 100. An SNR of 15
stationary within each data frame and is independent between dB is assumed for all the cases. It is noticed that our cross-
different data frames. We consider a system with Kt = 20 layer approach outperforms the other schemes for both small-
users, and the maximum number of users which can be size and large-size systems. In addition, the w/o MPR+FRA
supported simultaneously is Kmax = Mr = 4. Saturated method has a very similar performance as w/o MPR+DRA,
traffic is also assumed. In the backoff procedure, we use which is monotonically decreasing along with the increase of
CWmin = 8 and CWmax = 256, respectively. The formats of the users’ number Kt . This can be explained by noting that
the control frames including the RTS, CTS, ACK are designed if the number of users contending for access increases, more
based on the current 802.11a standard [1], which are composed collisions will occur and hence more resources will be wasted.
of a Frame Control Field (2 bytes), Duration Field (2 bytes), In contrast, we notice that the peak throughput of our cross-
Receiver Address (RA) Field (6 bytes), Transmitter Address layer approach or the MPR+FRA scheme is not achieved at
(TA) Field (6 bytes, only in the RTS), and Frame Check the point of minimum network size. Specifically, a throughput
Sequence (FCS, 4 bytes). Because MPR is supported in our increase is shown from Kt = 5 to Kt = 30 using the cross-
system, multiple RA Fields may be required for the CTS and layer approach. This is due to the fact that our proposed
ACK frames to acknowledge the nodes with successful RTS methodology can efficiently utilize the resources, and the
contentions or data transmissions. All the control frames are multiuser diversity is not fully exploited when the number of
transmitted at a mandatory rate of 6Mbps. The other parame- users is small. This conclusion also explains the phenomenon
ters used in the simulation are listed in Table 1. In contrast to that the optimal number of users (which corresponds to the
our proposed cross-layer approach where MPR and adaptive maximum throughput) achieved by our cross-layer approach,
resource allocation are jointly designed, either no MPR or is larger than that of the MPR+FRA scheme. On the other
no adaptive resource allocation is applied in classical systems hand, we can notice that the throughput of MRSD remains
or existing work. These previous methods are referred to as basically unchanged with respect to different numbers of users.
MPR+fixed resource allocation (FRA), w/o MPR+dynamic This is because no multi-user diversity gain can be utilized and

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 3382 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON WIRELESS COMMUNICATIONS, VOL. 7, NO. 9, SEPTEMBER 2008

8 12
MPR+FRA Cross−Layer Approach

w/o MPR+DRA MPR+FRA

7 w/o MPR+DRA
w/o MPR+FRA 10
Proposed Cross−Layer Approach MRSD w/o MPR+FRA
MRSD
Throughput (Number of Packets/ms)

6
8

Average Packet Delay (ms)

5

4
3

2 2

1 0
10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100 0.04 0.08 0.12 0.16 0.2 0.24 0.28
Number of Users
Packet Arrival Rate (packets/ms)

Fig. 8. Average throughput versus different numbers of users in the network. Fig. 9. Comparison of average packet delay versus packet arrival rates.

the use of multiple RTS reception can reduce collisions when

the number of users increases.
capacity η using our scheme is about 5.2 packets/ms at an
SNR of 15 dB. Hence, this verifies the theory that the system
C. Throughput and Packet Delay under Unsaturated Condi- is stable when the accumulated packet arrival rate Kt .r is
tion smaller than the network capacity η. On the other hand, as
In the investigations so far, we have assumed a saturated the traffic load decreases, the gap of packet delay between
traffic in the network. However, it is more practical to make different schemes gradually diminishes and finally vanishes.
a common assumption on the traffic arrival mode. In this
Next we investigate the average packet delay of these
sub-section, we generate the packets for the queue of user
schemes given different values of SNR. Fig. 10 shows the
j according to a Poisson distribution of parameter rj . In
comparison of the average packet delay assuming that a packet
other words, the time interval between two successive packets’
arrival rate r = 0.14 packets/ms and Kt = 20. As expected,
arrival obeys an exponential distribution. rj is the intensity of
the average packet delay decreases as SNR increases, and
the arrivals or the packet arrival rate, i.e., on average rj packets
our cross-layer approach significantly outperforms the other
arrive within the unit time. The packet arrival processes for Kt
schemes throughout the whole SNR range. To make the
users are assumed to be independent and the network capacity

Kt system stable, an SNR advantage of 5 dB, 6 dB, 11 dB,
is denoted by η. In particular, rj is required to be no larger 14 dB can be gained by our cross-layer approach, compared
j=1 to MPR+FRA, MRSD, w/o MPR+DRA, w/o MPR+FDA,
than η so as to make the system stable or in equilibrium [28].
respectively. Furthermore, it can be seen that unlike Fig. 9
Fig. 9 shows the average packet delay under different packet
where the gap of packet delay diminishes for the light traffic
arrival rates. The packet delay is defined as the time interval
load, the delay performance of the different schemes cannot
from the time the packet arrives, until an ACK for this packet
converge even for high SNR. This is because, compared to the
is received. We consider a scenario of SN R = 15 dB and
w/o MPR schemes, MPR can greatly reduce the probability of
Kt = 20. Without loss of generality, the packet arrival rate,
collisions and improve the packet delay when the traffic load
denoted as r, is assumed to be the same for all the users. From
is not so light.
this figure, we see that for MPR+FDA, the system becomes
unstable (i.e., the average packet delay grows unboundedly The throughput performance of different schemes under
with time) when r is larger than 0.18 packets/ms. The per- different packet arrival rates is investigated in Fig. 11. From
formance of MRSD, w/o MPR+DRA and w/o MPR+FRA is this figure, we notice that for each scheme there exists
even worse, which results in an infinite packet delay unless a threshold of packet arrival rate which has an important
the packet arrival rate is lower than 0.15 packets/ms, 0.13 influence on the system throughput. When the packet arrival
packets/ms, and 0.12 packets/ms, respectively. In contrast, rate is lower than such threshold, the throughput linearly
the average packet delay using our cross-layer approach is increases as the packet arrival rate increases. Otherwise, the
significantly lower than that of the other schemes at heavy throughput remains basically unchanged. This phenomenon
traffic loads. Specifically, when the packets arrive at a rate of can be easily understood and these thresholds can be obtained
0.18 packets/ms, our scheme can achieve a delay reduction from Fig. 9 where the system becomes unstable and packet
of 60% compared to MPR+FRA. Further observation shows delay tends to infinity at these critical points. Alternatively,
that our cross-layer approach can keep the system stable, as these thresholds can be determined using the network capacity
long as the packet arrival rate does not exceed 0.26 packets/ms. (i.e., the maximum system throughput which is achieved in
Moreover, it follows from the results of Fig. 7 that the network saturation condition) divided by the number of users.

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 HUANG et al.: CROSS-LAYER MULTI-PACKET RECEPTION BASED MEDIUM ACCESS CONTROL AND RESOURCE ALLOCATION 3383

12
Cross−Layer Approach
A PPENDIX I: C ALCULATION OF S HARING FACTORS
MPR+FRA
Since the two combinations i1 and i2 are required to share
w/o MPR+DRA
10
w/o MPR+FRA
the same sub-carrier n◦ , the allocation on the sub-carriers
MRSD other than n◦ remains the same irrespective of the chosen two
8  2 K  
c ◦ ,i,n
Average Packet Delay (ms)

combinations. Let Δk◦ = 1i,n βi,n fk◦ ,i,n kβi,n

n=n◦ i=1
K
 2 c 
6 [k◦ +1]K ,i,n
and Δ[k◦ +1]K = 1i,n βi,n f[k◦ +1]K ,i,n βi,n ,
n=n◦ i=1
4
then we have to satisfy the following condition according to
(26)
βi1 ,n◦ fk◦ ,i1 ,n◦ +(1−βi1 ,n◦ )fk◦ ,i2 ,n◦ +Δk◦
2
βi1 ,n◦ f[k◦ +1]K ,i1 ,n◦ +(1−βi1 ,n◦ )f[k◦ +1]K ,i2 ,n◦ +Δ[k◦ +1]K (32)
= R[kR◦k+1]
◦
.
K
0
5 10 15 20 25 30
SNR per subcarrier (dB) We then have

Fig. 10. Average packet delay of five schemes under different values of
βi1 ,n◦
SNR. Rk◦ (f[k◦ +1]K ,i2 ,n◦ +Δ[k◦ +1]K )−R[k◦ +1]K (fk◦ ,i2 ,n◦ +Δk◦ )
= R[k◦ +1]K (fk◦ ,i1 ,n◦ −fk◦ ,i2 ,n◦ )−Rk◦ (f[k◦ +1]K ,i1 ,n◦ −f[k◦ +1]K ,i2 ,n◦ )
.
5.5
(33)
Cross−Layer Approach According to the definition of Sk◦ , S[k◦ +1]K , Sk ◦ , S[k

◦ +1] ,
K
5 MPR+FRA
it can be concluded that
w/o MPR+DRA
4.5 w/o MPR+FRA
MRSD Sk◦ = fk◦ ,i1 ,n◦ + Δk◦ (34)
Throughput (Number of Packets/ms)

3.5
S[k◦ +1]K = f[k◦ +1]K ,i1 ,n◦ + Δ[k◦ +1]K (35)

3 Sk ◦ = fk◦ ,i2 ,n◦ + Δk◦ (36)


2.5 S[k ◦ +1]
K
= f[k◦ +1]K ,i2 ,n◦ + Δ[k◦ +1]K . (37)
2 By substituting (34)-(37) into (33), we can get

1.5 Rk◦ S[k ◦ +1] − R[k◦ +1]K Sk ◦
βi1 ,n◦ = K
 
1
R[k◦ +1]K (Sk◦ − Sk ◦ ) − Rk◦ S[k◦ +1]K − S[k
◦ +1]
K
0.5 (38)
0.04 0.08 0.12 0.16 0.2 0.24 0.28
Packet Arrival Rate (packets/ms) and

Fig. 11. Average throughput of different schemes under different packet

βi2 ,n◦ = 1 − βi1 ,n◦
R[k◦ +1]K Sk◦ −Rk◦ S[k◦ +1]K (39)
arrival rates. =  
R[k◦ +1]K (Sk◦ −Sk ◦ )−Rk◦ S[k◦ +1]K −S[k

◦ +1]
K

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1995.
Wei Lan Huang (S’04-M’07) was born in Hu-
nan, China, in August 1982. She received the B.E.
degree (with first class honors) in Communication
Engineering from Beijing University of Posts and
Telecommunications, Beijing, China, in June 2003,
and the Ph.D. degree in the Department of Electronic
and Computer Engineering, the Hong Kong Uni-
versity of Science and Technology, Kowloon, Hong
Kong, in August 2007. She is now working with
Nokia Research Center. Her research interests in-
clude cross-layer design and optimization, adaptive
resource allocation in MIMO/OFDM systems, cognitive radio, wireless ad
hoc networks, and mobile internet service.
Authorized licensed use limited to: VELLORE INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY. Downloaded on August 4, 2009 at 10:14 from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.
Khaled Ben Letaief (S’85-M’86-SM’97-F’03) re-
ceived the BS degree with distinction in Electri-
cal Engineering from Purdue University at West
Lafayette, Indiana, USA, in December 1984. He
received the MS and Ph.D. Degrees in Electrical En-
gineering from Purdue University, in August 1986,
and May 1990, respectively. From January 1985 and
as a Graduate Instructor in the School of Electrical
Engineering at Purdue University, he has taught
courses in communications and electronics.
From 1990 to 1993, he was a faculty member at
the University of Melbourne, Australia. Since 1993, he has been with the
Hong Kong University of Science & Technology where he is currently a
Chair Professor of Electronic and Computer Engineering (ECE) and Head
of the ECE Department. He is also the Director of the Hong Kong Telecom
Institute of Information Technology as well as the Director of the Center
for Wireless Information Technology. His current research interests include
wireless and mobile networks, Broadband wireless access, OFDM, CDMA,
and Beyond 3G systems. In these areas, he has published over 280 journal
and conference papers and given invited keynote talks as well as courses all
over the world.
Dr. Letaief served as consultants for different organizations and is currently
the founding Editor-in-Chief of the IEEE T RANSACTIONS ON W IRELESS
C OMMUNICATIONS. He has served on the editorial board of other pres-
tigious journals including the IEEE J OURNAL ON S ELECTED A REAS IN
C OMMUNICATIONS - W IRELESS S ERIES (as Editor-in-Chief) and the IEEE
T RANSACTIONS ON C OMMUNICATIONS. He has been involved in organizing
a number of major international conferences and events. These include serving
as the Technical Program Chair of the 1998 IEEE Globecom Mini-Conference
on Communications Theory, held in Sydney, Australia as well as the Co-
Chair of the 2001 IEEE ICC Communications Theory Symposium, held in
Helsinki, Finland. In 2004, he served as the Co-Chair of the IEEE Wireless
Communications, Networks and Systems Symposium, held in Dallas, USA as
well as the Co-Technical Program Chair of the 2004 IEEE International Con-
ference on Communications, Circuits and Systems, held in Chengdu, China.
He is also the General Co-Chair of the 2007 IEEE Wireless Communications
and Networking Conference, WCNC’07, held in Hong Kong as well as the
Technical Program Co-Chair of the 2008 IEEE International Conference on
Communication, ICC’08 held in Beijing. He served as the Chair of the IEEE
Communications Society Technical Committee on Personal Communications
as well as a member of the IEEE ComSoc Technical Activity Council.
In addition to his active research activities, Professor Letaief has been a
dedicated teacher committed to excellence in teaching and scholarship. He
received the Mangoon Teaching Award from Purdue University in 1990;
the Teaching Excellence Appreciation Award by the School of Engineering
at HKUST (4 times); and the Michael G. Gale Medal for Distinguished
Teaching (Highest university-wide teaching award and only one recipient/year
is honored for his/her contributions).
He is a Fellow of IEEE and an IEEE Distinguished lecturer of the IEEE
Communications Society, and an elected member of the IEEE Communica-
tions Society Board of Governors.
Ying Jun Zhang received her PhD degree in Elec-
trical and Electronic Engineering from the Hong
Kong University of Science and Technology, Hong
Kong. Since Jan. 2005, she has been with the De-
partment of Information Engineering in the Chinese
University of Hong Kong, where she is currently an
assistant professor.
Dr. Zhang is an Editor of IEEE T RANSACTIONS
OF W IRELESS C OMMUNICATIONS , and an Asso-
ciate Editor of W ILEY S ECURITY AND C OMMU -
NICATIONS N ETWORKS J OURNAL. She has served
as a Track Chair of ICCCN 2007 and Publicity Chair of IEEE MASS
2007. She has been serving as a Technical Program Committee Member for
leading conferences including IEEE ICC, IEEE GLOBECOM, IEEE WCNC,
IEEE ICCCAS, IWCMC, IEEE CCNC, IEEE ITW, IEEE MASS, MSN, and
ChinaCom.
Her research interests include wireless communications and mobile net-
works, adaptive resource allocation, cross layer design and optimization,
wireless LAN/MAN, broadband OFDM and multicarrier techniques, MIMO
signal processing. As the only winner from Engineering Science, Dr. Zhang
has won the Hong Kong Young Scientist Award 2006, conferred by the Hong
Kong Institution of Science.