CAREER: Distributed Broadcasting Protocols for Multi-Radio Multi-Channel and Multi-Rate Ad Hoc Mesh Networks

为了缓解单无线电单通道和单速率无线网络的广播风暴问题，已经开发了大量的广播协议。然而，多无线电多信道和多速率Mesh （M4）网络的出现也带来了许多新的挑战，如信道分配、邻接信道干扰、网络容量等。该项目侧重于M4网络分布式广播协议的设计、分析和实现。要考虑的挑战包括信道评估和分配、干扰感知度量设计、传输速率控制、广播树构建等。深入的理论分析，模拟和现实世界的网络实验也进行了评估广播协议。该项目还探索了几项教育创新。这包括发展一种新的三层教学结构，高效的教学方法，以及将研究纳入学习和教育的有效手段。作为该项目的一个重要组成部分，为来自当地高中的代表性不足的少数民族开展了外联活动，目的是提高他们的学习成绩。本研究促进了对无线网状网络、网络优化和信息传播领域的认识和理解。所研究的问题在实用和智力上都很重要，其解决方案对无线通信链路建模、网络流量理论和网络性能分析等几个领域至关重要。该项目开发的技术将受益于广泛的应用，包括国土安全和军事网络部署。研究成果将通过国际会议、学术期刊、研讨会、讲习班和网站等多种渠道传播。

A vast array of broadcasting protocols has been developed to alleviate the Broadcast Storm Problem for single-radio single-channel and single-rate wireless networks. The emergence of Multi-radio Multi-channel and Multi-rate Mesh (M4) networks, however, brings a lot of new challenges, such as channel assignment, adjacent-channel interference, and network capacity. This project focuses on the design, analysis, and implementation of distributed broadcasting protocols for M4 networks. Challenges such as channel assessment and assignment, interference-aware metric design, transmission rate control, broadcasting tree construction, etc., are to be considered. In-depth theoretical analysis, simulations, and real-world network experiments are also conducted to evaluate the broadcasting protocols. This project also explores several educational innovations. These include the development of a novel three-layer teaching structure, efficient pedagogical approaches, and effective means of incorporating research into learning and education. As one important component of this project, outreach activities are developed for underrepresented minorities from local high schools with the aim of improving their academic performance. This research advances knowledge and understanding in the areas of wireless mesh networks, network optimization, and information dissemination. The problems studied are pragmatically and intellectually important and their solutions are critical to several areas such as the modeling of wireless communication links, networking traffic theory, and network performance analysis. The techniques developed in this project will benefit a broad spectrum of applications, including homeland security and military network deployment. Research results will be disseminated through a number of channels including international conferences, academic journals, seminars, workshops, and websites.