Cross Layer Design in MIMO Multi-cell Systems. (Conception de Mecanismes Inter-couches dans les Systemes MIMO Multi-cellulaires)

Future wireless communication systems are expected to see an explosion in the wireless traffic which is mainly fueled by mobile video traffic. Due to the time varying and bursty nature of video traffic, wireless systems will see a wider range of fluctuations in their traffic patterns. Therefore, traditional physical layer based algorithms which perform resource allocation under the assumption that the transmitters are always saturated with information bits, might no longer be efficient. It is, thus, important to design dynamic resource allocation algorithms which can incorporate higher layer processes and account for the stochastic nature of the wireless traffic. The central idea of this thesis is to develop cross-layer design algorithms between the physical and the network layer in a multiple input multiple output (MIMO) multi-cell setup. Specifically, we consider base stations (BSs) equipped with multiple antennas serving multiple single antenna user terminals (UTs) in their respective cells. In contrast to the previous works, we consider the randomness in the arrival of information bits and hence account for the queuing at the BSs. With this setup, we develop various cross-layer based resource allocation algorithms. We incorporate two important design considerations namely decentralized design and energy efficiency. In particular, we focus on developing decentralized beamforming and traffic flow controller design, energy efficient design under time average QoS constraints and decentralized scheduling strategy in a multi-cell scenario. To this end, we use tools from Lyapunov optimization, random matrix theory and stochastic control theory.