Spatial diversity has proved to be very effective in increasing wireless network capacity and reliability. However, equipping a wireless node with multiple antennas may not always be practical. This project explores Cooperative Communications (CC), where each node is only equipped with a single antenna and spatial diversity is achieved by exploiting the antennas on other nodes in the network. Although CC at the physical layer has been under intensive research in recent years, fundamental understanding of CC in ad hoc networks remains limited. The goal of this project is to optimize network level throughput by exploiting cooperative relaying at the physical layer. This project focuses on designing network level algorithms based on analytical models for cooperative relaying such that network level throughput can be maximized. Specifically, there are three inter-dependent research thrusts in this project: (1) optimal use of network coding in cooperative relay networks; (2) relay node selection for throughput maximization; and (3) performance limits of cooperation in multi-hop relay networks. This research serves a critical need in advancing cooperative relay network research by developing new mathematical tools to study some open and important problem areas. The success of this project offers a major step forward in establishing its theoretical foundation. The research on throughput optimization also leads to the development of new algorithmic and optimization tools that are beyond the traditional domain of convex optimization. An important educational objective of this project is to develop new cross-disciplinary course materials for wireless networking.
