CAREER: Integrated Multi-hop Wireless Networks

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A ubiquitous and integrated architecture has been envisioned for future wireless communication. In particular, integrating multi-hop wireless networking technology with infrastructure-based systems is becoming one of the most promising trends in building the next generation mobile wireless network. Developed as an independently-deployed system, however, the multi-hop wireless network is usually the performance bottleneck in terms of throughput and reliability in integrated heterogeneous systems. There is an urgent need to investigate new approaches that exploit the complementary characteristics of different technologies in order to make integrated communication systems robust and efficient.This project consists of two intimately interrelated research thrusts: enhanced communication protocols and self-configurable management schemes. The first thrust aims to achieve superior system throughput and quality of service (QoS) in integrated multi-hop wireless networks. In particular, a synchronized MAC protocol is designed based on a binary countdown scheme tailored for multi-hop wireless networks, and a cluster-based routing protocol is developed where the cluster size is determined by a scalability model and the clusters are bridged by existing network infrastructure. The second research thrust explores several fundamental problems in three areas: (1) a self-configurable, robust, and highly accurate local positioning technique, (2) self-healing tractable node management for enhancing reliability of multi-hop wireless networks, and (3) a self-maintenance scheduling model generally applicable to various integrated multi-hop wireless networks. Success of this project will enable researches to gain deep understanding of the integration of heterogeneous wireless technologies and to establish a new paradigm for integrating research and education in heterogeneous wireless networks.