Intellectual Merit: Cooperation is an effective strategy in nature to achieve individual or common goals by forming cooperative groups. While the wireless communications research community has shown that cooperation techniques can substantially increase the system performance, most of the existing work is limited to a single network. On the other hand, the ubiquitous wireless applications are bringing more and more new networks, making the co-existence of multi-networks inevitable. The objective of this BRIGE research is to develop a new network structure that integrates cellular, TV broadcast, and ad-hoc networks using cross-layer inter-network cooperation techniques. The research components of the project consist of two parts. The first part is a collaborative broadcast and cellular hybrid system, which is a joint design approach for broadcast and cellular services to be simultaneously supported in a single platform. In this project, focus is on the more practical hybrid model with joint coding, where information bits are coded across both time and frequency. The second part is a collaborative cellular and ad-hoc hybrid system, which achieves the benefits offered by both infrastructure networks (high throughput, good reliability and quality of service) and ad-hoc networks (larger coverage, low cost and flexibility).
Broader Impacts: The issues identified in this project are inherently cognizant, thus the research output will likely influence and transform, rather than follow, scientific and technological trends. In particular, the proposed hybrid network structure will bring new wireless services to hard-to-reach, low population density areas, typical of rural environments. The PI will also recruit students of underrepresented groups in North Dakota, including Native American, female, low incoming and first generation students to participate in the project. By integrating research and education together, this project will broaden the participation of underrepresented groups in engineering.
