Cross Layer Optimization (CLO) strategies are currently being incorporated in network operating system for efficient utilization of resources to enable effective information management. In wireless adhoc networks real time optimizations need to be performed and hence CLO strategies that have faster response time are required. In this paper we propose a Cross Layer Optimization strategy that uses a variant of the Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) for real time cross layer design of the network. The variant of the PSO used in this research work uses digital pheromones for improved performance. The proposed PSO-CLO strategy can be used for delay sensitive, bandwidth intensive and loss-tolerant wireless multimedia transmissions that have an ever demanding need for better Quality of Service. Our experimental results show that the proposed PSO-CLO strategy has significantly faster response time in comparison with the classical CLO solutions. Copyright 2011 ACM.