Wireless networks are the dominant medium through which people connect to the Internet, communicate, do business and access information. The ever-growing demand for higher data rates places the conventional approaches to network design under considerable stress. To meet this demand, future wireless networks are rapidly evolving towards high-density, user-deployed, heterogeneous infrastructure characterized by very high data rates at shorter communication range, with possibly harsh interference. In this context, multiple flow and multiple hop communication is expected to play an increasingly important role. Yet, current visions of how such networks should be designed are limited by the fact that the fundamental understanding of such novel communication paradigms is still in its infancy.
This research addresses key questions about multihop multiflow networks in the form of new ideas, insights and tools, with a transformative impact on the design of future networks. The project is organized into three symbiotic research thrusts on extensibility, side information and algorithms. In the extensibility thrust, the investigators develop a new understanding of the capacity of multihop multiflow networks of prototypical network models. The side information thrust moves beyond idealized model assumptions and incorporates imperfect or uncertain conditions at multiple spatial and temporal scales. The third thrust on algorithms translates the new key ideas developed in the first two thrusts into explicit coding and signal processing algorithms with polynomial complexity in the network size, for resource-efficient multiflow multihop communication. The research can broadly impact the wireless industry by generating new ideas that will power the design of future generations of wireless networks. The project also includes a dedicated educational plan to recruit and train under-represented minorities in this field.
