This award supports the participation of American researchers, postdocs, and graduate students in a U.S.- Australia workshop on self-organizing wireless networks based on cross layer interactions to be held in Melbourne in November 2008. The co-organizers are Professor Stuart Milner of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Maryland, College Park and Professor Marimuthu Palaniswami in the Division of Electrical and Electronic Engineering at the University of Melbourne and Convenor of ARC (Australian Research Council) Research Network on Intelligent Sensors, Sensor Networks and Information Processing (ISSNIP). Wireless communication networks that can self-organize or autonomously reconfigure their architecture, (e.g., the network topology, the communication protocols, etc.) in response to degradation and/or loss of system function/connectivity as well as dynamic application requirements represent a new and potentially transformative research idea. Such networks can sense, diagnose, and reconfigure to function uninterruptedly during and after unplanned events. The goal of the meeting is to advance the fundamental understanding of self-organizing networks, to advance their theoretical foundations, to identify the challenges of these networks, and to allow the analysis and design of autonomously reconfigurable engineered systems integrating physical, networks and application domains. Specifically they will be discussing the importance of the dynamic topological reconfiguration capabilities of the network to autonomous operation and responsiveness for real-time network applications.
There is sufficient overlap of interests between the University of Maryland and the University of Melbourne to indicate that they can successfully pursue the activities proposed and that the interaction will benefit both sides. Users of next generation wireless and mobile systems would benefit from advantages provided by the self-organizing wireless network technologies being discussed. This workshop will provide the US postdocs and graduate students an excellent opportunity to receive a global research experience. It is anticipated that they will maintain contacts and collaborations with the Australian researchers and students throughout their careers. Information about the workshop and its findings will be made available via respective websites (U.S.: www.cnis.umd.edu: Australia: www.ee.unimelb.edu.au/ISSNIP/.) The workshop is being jointly funded with NSF?s Division of Electrical, Communications and Cyber Systems.
