Free Space Optics (FSO) provide a cost-effective, license-free, high-bandwidth and long-range solution to meet the escalating demand for wireless network capacity and scalability. This project aims to develop technologies for robust FSO networks from the network and cross-layer optimization perspective. Various network dynamics will be addressed with the following approaches. (i) For dynamics at large timescales, network planning and topology optimization will be investigated based on the concept of algebraic connectivity. (ii) For mid-timescale dynamics, effective load balancing and adaptive multipath routing will be developed. (iii) For small timescale dynamics, channel estimation will be investigated to enable rate adaptation and optimal receiver design. Wavelength diversity will also be exploited for the diversity-multiplexing tradeoff.
If successful, this project will enable scalable wireless access networks with multi-gigabit rates, to accommodate the predicted increase in wireless data. Project outcomes will be disseminated and incorporated into the Auburn University Wireless Engineering curriculum. The PIs will strive to involve REU students, and to participate in Auburn?s TIGERs Camp for outreach to K-12 students. The PIs have collaborations with an HBCU on research, curriculum, and recruiting minority graduate students.
This is a timely project given the imminent explosive increase in wireless data. This project is of high risk, due to the lack of measurement data in the public domain and the novel approach taken in this research. This project is also of high payoff. If successful, it can bring about the much needed technologies for high rate, long distance, and scalable wireless access networks.
Free Space Optics (FSO) provide a cost-effective, license-free, high-bandwidth and long-range solution to meet the escalating demand for wireless network capacity and scalability. This project aims to develop technologies for robust FSO networks from the network and cross-layer optimization perspective. Various network dynamics have been addressed in this project. For dynamics at large timescales, network planning and topology optimization are investigated based on the concept of algebraic connectivity. For mid-timescale dynamics, effective load balancing and adaptive multipath routing schemes have been developed. For small timescale dynamics, adaptive transmission techniques such as cooperative diversity, wavelength-division multiplexing, and power allocation are investigated to enable rate adaptation and achieve robustness against atmospheric turbulence. The outcomes from this research support the development of technologies that can enable long distance, multi-gigabit rates, and license-free future wireless networks to meet the surging wireless data demand. The proposed tiered architecture can mitigate the scalability problem for broadband wireless access networks. The topology design, optimization and load balancing algorithms could be useful for the wide deployment of large scale access networks for ubiquitous broadband wireless access. This research is also complementary to the existing PHY/device focused FSO research, by addressing the network level problems and providing useful algorithms for network level optimization and control. The use of algebraic connectivity for enhancing network robustness is shown to the effective and novel. Project outcomes have been disseminated in the community as technical publications and presentations. A female doctoral student co-advised by the PIs will be graduated from this project in May 2014. An REU student has published a technical conference paper on applying optical communications in vehicular networks. This project was also used in Auburn University’s TIGERs Camp for outreach to K-12 students.
