Patent ID: 7656815

Claim:
An apparatus for controlling an operation of a plurality of communication layers of a layered communication system, wherein the communication layers comprise OSI model layers, the layered communication system transmitting information through a communication channel, wherein an operation mode of a first communication layer of the plurality of communication layers is determined by a first set of parameters, and wherein an operation mode of a second communication layer, distinct from said first communication layer, of the plurality of communication layers is determined by a second set of parameters the apparatus comprising: a communication channel property provider; an extractor for extracting the first set of parameters of the first communication layer and the second set of parameters of the second communication layer to determine current statuses of the first and second communication layer; an abstraction model provider for providing a first abstraction model and a second abstraction model, wherein each abstraction model causes a parameter abstraction to transform the first and second sets of parameters into first and second key parameters comprehensible for a cross-layer optimizer; a determiner comprising the cross-layer optimizer, wherein the cross-layer optimizer jointly determines an optimized first set of parameters to be used by the first communication layer and an optimized second set of parameters to be used by the second communication layer, the first and second sets of parameters being optimized across the first communication layer and the second communication layer based on the first and second key parameters, the channel property and an optimization goal; and an optimized parameter provider for providing the optimized first set of parameters to the first communication layer and the optimized second set of parameters to the second communication layers, wherein the plurality of communication layers of the layered communication system are protocol layers, wherein the second communication layer is operative for managing a transmission of the information through the communication channel and for extracting the property of the communication channel, wherein the provider for providing the property of the communication channel is coupled to the second communication layer for receiving the property of the communication channel.