CAREER: Fundamental Performance Limits of Large-Scale Wireless Sensor Networks

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In recent times much has been said about how, once deployed, networksof devices with wireless communication capabilities will affect the waywe work, learn, interact, organize, get entertained, fight wars, andrecover from disasters. This interest in wireless networks has led toa fair amount of research activity in the areas of mobile and ad-hocnetworking, addressing both systems and theory issues. However, notmuch research work has been done on fundamental information theoreticconcepts related to wireless *sensor* networks, i.e., networks of tiny,low power, unreliable devices equipped with very limited sensing andcommunication capabilities, and embedded in the environment. Thisproject is primarily about the study of fundamental performance limitsfor large-scale wireless sensor networks. Specifically, there arethree problems, deeply intertwined with each other, and very relevantin practice, on which we concentrate our efforts: - Source Coding problems, dealing with the design and performanceanalysis of codes and signal processing algorithms for the random fieldsgenerated by sensor nodes. - Routing problems, dealing with design and performance analysis ofprotocols and signal processing algorithms for moving sensor data *within*the network. - Reachback Communication problems, dealing with the design andperformance analysis of codes and signal processing algorithms for movingsensor data *out* of the network.The solution to problems of source coding, routing, and reachbackcommunication in sensor networks requires a "marriage" of networkingand communication theoretic concepts. This presents an interestingopportunity for innovation in education, since networking is typicallyregarded as a "pure CS" topic, whereas communication theory is typicallyregarded as a "pure EE" topic. All of my educational and outreachactivities (undergraduate and graduate course development, lab development,undergraduate textbook development, service to community) are designedaround the general goal of providing a solid theoretical basis to ourstudents in networking and communications, as well as the more specificgoal of highlighting the interplay between these concepts in the contextof wireless sensor networks.