This proposal seeks funding for the Center for Wireless Internet Center for Advanced Technology (WICAT) studies conducted by the Polytechnic Institute of New York site (lead), the University of Virginia site and the site at Auburn University. Funding Requests for Fundamental Research are authorized by an NSF approved solicitation, NSF 10-507. The solicitation invites I/UCRCs to submit proposals for support of industry-defined fundamental research.
This proposal is a comprehensive research project for significantly improving the capacity of wireless networks. In past decades, there has been an exponential growth of wireless devices and wireless networks. While wireless networks have brought us the convenience of mobility and new applications, they are limited by bandwidth bottlenecks. The industry and spectrum regulators are trying to allocate more bandwidth, but they still fall behind the bandwidth increases in wireless networks. Thus it is critically important to use spectrum resources more efficiently. The proposed work aims to decrease interference, including cooperative and cognitive networking. This research will not only make significant contributions to the research community, but also be very valuable for the wireless industry and spectrum regulators.
This proposal aims to eliminate wireless system bottlenecks using cooperative and cognitive technologies, with the potential of enabling a broad spectrum of new wireless applications. The PIs will exploit existing programs, such as NSF REUs and the collaboration with Tuskegee and Northern New Mexico College, which focus on including students from underrepresented groups in the research. The student body at NYU-Poly is quite diverse. Most of the requested funding is going toward student support. The Pisa lo intend to incorporate this work into the new graduate course at NYU-Poly and the new ABET-accredited program at Auburn. Dissemination is clearly outlined: reports to NSF, reports to their IAB, journal and conference papers and making the resulting software packages open source.
An important class of optimization algorithms widely used in communication systems is referred to as "water filling" because the basic structure of these algorithms, in which power is dynamically adjusted to improve throughput, is analogous to the way water diffuses through multiple adjacent compartments. Unfortunately, when there is time-varying estimation error of the channel state (a situation commonly found in practice), these algorithms may diverge. In our work we have proposed an "averaged water filling" algorithm that is guaranteed to converge under various forms of time-varying channel state estimation error. In a second strand of our work, we have developed variations to "water filling" that would facilitate efficient re-allocation and/or re-use of spectrum for wireless networking. In a typical scenario for spectrum re-use, primary users (i.e. those having spectrum licenses) would allow secondary users to make use of the licensed spectrum provided aggregate interference on their own receivers does not exceed certain bounds. In the second part of our work, we have shown that a scheme in which dynamic pricing of interference is coupled with averaged water-filling is guaranteed to induce an equilibrium choice of power levels in which the bounds on aggregate interference set by primary users are satisfied. The broader impact of our work relates to the increasing demand for mobile broadband applications which has put in evidence the need for new schemes enabling dynamic and efficient re-allocation and/or re-use of the available spectrum. In our work, we have identified algorithmic schemes that are aimed at fulfilling this need.
