472 ◾ Mobile Ad Hoc Networks: Current Status and Future Trends
18.3 Cross-Layer Design
During the last several decades in the history of networking, the network protocols have been
distributed into several independent layers. All the functionality is divided in layers and each layer
is designed separately. e interaction between the protocols in the different layers is performed
through a well-defined interface. is type of architecture follows the “divide and conquer” prin-
ciple and has the advantage of complexity reduction and increase of the architectural flexibility.
By defining exactly the functionality of each layer and the service access point interfaces in each
layer, one implementation of a layer can be seamlessly replaced by another ...