CIF: Small: A Stochastic Approximation Approach to Network Communications with Feedback

具有反馈和中继的跨网络通信是信息和通信理论中一个重要的、具有挑战性的、大部分开放的问题。系统的和可扩展的通信算法将增强可靠性，降低编码复杂度或延迟，通过利用分集赋予通信方案鲁棒性，并且在某些情况下增加可实现的通信速率。由于所有现代通信系统采用多种反馈机制，更好地了解通信反馈是势在必行的。本研究的重点是通过一致性算法和更一般的随机逼近算法的镜头来查看它更深入地研究这个话题。这种方法产生了可扩展的和鲁棒的算法，用于与现代通信系统极端相关的情况，例如，具有噪声反馈的网络场景。融合的问题，技术和工具，从信息理论和分布式动态系统的利用，对这两个领域的潜在的变革性影响。除了分析技术和模拟，该团队还利用基于软件定义无线电的无线网络测试平台中实现新型通信算法的设施和经验。任何对具有噪声反馈的网络通信问题的影响都将立即应用于大多数现代通信系统。此外，这项研究进一步统一的两个方面和研究社区相关的一个更一般的信息理论-一个既考虑数据的传输（经典信息理论），以及其利用（经典动力系统）。该项目的一个组成部分是强调在会议中组织特别会议，提供新的研究生课程，包括实验研究中的本科生，指导少数民族学生，并进一步向对工程感兴趣的高中生推广。

Communication across networks with feedback and relays is an important, challenging, and largely open problem in information and communication theory. Systematic and scalable communication algorithms will enhance reliability, decrease coding complexity or delay, impart robustness to communication schemes by exploiting diversity, and in some cases increase the achievable communication rates. Since all modern communication systems employ multiple feedback mechanisms, a better understanding of communication feedback is imperative.This research focuses on a deeper study of this topic by viewing it through the lenses of consensus algorithms and more general stochastic approximation algorithms. This approach yields scalable and robust algorithms for cases of extreme relevance to modern communication systems, e.g., network scenarios with noisy feedback. A confluence of problems, techniques and tools from information theory and distributed dynamic systems are utilized, with a potential transformative impact on both fields. In addition to analytical techniques and simulations, the team also utilizes facilities and experience realizing novel communication algorithms in a wireless network testbed based upon software-defined radios.Any impact on the problem of communication across networks with noisy feedback will have immediate applications to most modern communication systems. Moreover, this research furthers the unification of the two aspects and research communities relevant to a more general information theory - one that considers both the transmission of data (classical information theory), as well as its utilization (classical dynamical systems). An emphasis on organizing special sessions in conferences, offering new graduate courses, including undergraduates in the experimental research, mentoring minority students, and furthering outreach to high school students interested in engineering is an integral part of the project.