A key hurdle for next-generation mobile and wireless applications such as autonomous vehicle safety, tactile Internet, virtual/augmented reality, industrial robotics, and tele-surgery is ultra-low information response time (IRT), since these applications continue to see significant improvement in user-perceived experience all the way down to an IRT as low as a millisecond. Unfortunately, today's Internet protocol stack, despite the rather ambitious projections of emerging wireless communications standards, is unable to achieve a 1 millisecond common-case IRT in wireless environments. A fundamental bottleneck for reducing IRT is propagation delays limited by the speed of light as well as a variety of factors across the protocol stack. This project is investigating the design, implementation, and evaluation of a "light-speed networking" (LSN) architecture seeking to dramatically reduce IRT in wireless edge networks by incorporating an information-centric approach holistically across the different layers of the network protocol stack. This project will also develop novel curricula and dissemination materials aimed at education a new generation of workforce in information-aware networking principles are going to be the foundation of future communication networks.
The LSN project will enable the network to automatically migrate a remote service endpoint close to the end-user, for example, on to a nano-cloud on a virtualized base station, thereby cutting down propagation delays limited by the speed of light. LSN combines this capability with several other novel ideas including information-value-awareness: enabling different layers to leverage application-level knowledge about the value and semantics of the data; private information retrieval: enabling users to access information without revealing to the network what they are accessing; radio polymorphism: enabling intelligent use of different radios based on information value; access-point-centric security and privacy enhancements; etc. LSN builds upon key ideas from recent next-generation Internet architecture projects including MobilityFirst and XIA.
