  We consider the design of wireless queueing network control policies with
particular focus on combining stability with additional application-dependent
requirements. Thereby, we consequently pursue a cost function based approach
that provides the flexibility to incorporate constraints and requirements of
particular services or applications. As typical examples of such requirements,
we consider the reduction of buffer underflows in case of streaming traffic,
and energy efficiency in networks of battery powered nodes. Compared to the
classical throughput optimal control problem, such requirements significantly
complicate the control problem. We provide easily verifyable theoretical
conditions for stability, and, additionally, compare various candidate cost
functions applied to wireless networks with streaming media traffic. Moreover,
we demonstrate how the framework can be applied to the problem of energy
efficient routing, and we demonstrate the aplication of our framework in
cross-layer control problems for wireless multihop networks, using an advanced
power control scheme for interference mitigation, based on successive convex
approximation. In all scenarios, the performance of our control framework is
evaluated using extensive numerical simulations.
