Information Flow Theory in Dense Wireless Networks

摘要：未来的无线网络是由大量节点密集分布在大地理区域组成的。这种网络用于诸如广域环境保护、交通运输、自动化农业或民用基础设施系统中的无线微传感等应用。分布式信息源产生的信息通过节点之间的协作传输到目的地，节点之间相互转发流量；因此,信息扩散路线由许多啤酒花,每个贡献一个短距离传播。仔细分析具有如此大量无线节点的网络涉及到令人望而却步的复杂性。这种复杂性是由于网络中每对节点之间不协调的相互作用（例如，由于同时传输的干扰）；因此，人们对大规模密集无线网络的行为知之甚少。该方法通过节点连续体对密集无线网络进行建模。信息流的空间连续模型是一种非常有前途的方法，可以克服传统离散空间方法的令人望而却步的复杂性。该项目预计将为不同的目的提供强大的设计和分析工具，例如最小化给定信息源空间分布所需的无线节点数量，寻找空间中最小所需的节点密度，确定节点的位置，最小化节点的发射功率，负载平衡等。该项目是朝着密集无线网络中信息流理论发展的重要一步。这种理论是与其他科学和工程分支（如流体动力学、热交换和静电学）的经典流动理论相对应的无线网络理论。

Abstract:Future wireless networks are composed of a massive number of nodes densely distributed in large geographical areas. Such networks are used in applications such as wide area environmental protection, transportation, automated agriculture, or wireless micro-sensing in civil infrastructure systems. Information generated by distributed sources is transported to the destinations by collaborative efforts of nodes that forward the traffic of each other; therefore, the information is diffused over routes composed of many hops, each contributing to a short range transmission. Careful analysis of the networks with such large number of wireless nodes involves a prohibitive level of complexity. This complexity is due to the uncoordinated interactions between each pair of nodes in the network (e.g., due to interference of simultaneous transmissions); as a result, little is known about the behavior of massively dense wireless networks.The introduced methodology models a dense wireless network by a continuum of nodes. The spatially continuous model of information flow is a very promising methodology to overcome the prohibitive complexity of conventional discrete space methods. The project is expected to produce powerful design and analysis tools for different purposes such as minimizing the number of required wireless nodes for a given spatial distribution of information sources, finding minimum required density of nodes in space, determining the placement of nodes, minimizing the transmit power of nodes, load balancing, etc. The project is an important step towards development of a theory of information flow in dense wireless networks. Such a theory is the wireless networking counterpart of the classical flow theory of other branches of science and engineering such as fluid dynamics, heat exchange, and electrostatics.