CAREER: Theoretical Foundations for Wireless Network Algorithm Design: Satisfying Short-Term and Long-Term Application Requirements

被设想为形成许多未来通信系统的骨干的多跳无线网络是：通常受到限制和不可预测的变化的资源约束；需要使用低复杂性和可扩展的操作来操作；被设想为服务于具有一系列长期(例如，贪婪吞吐量、长持续时间的应用)到短期(例如，延迟敏感、短持续时间)需求的基本应用。然而，对于如何设计在恶劣条件下工作的无线网络控制器以有效地服务于不同的应用，特别是那些具有不同程度延迟敏感性的应用，我们的理解存在着巨大的差距。本研究通过为在一般多跳无线网络中有效地支持不同应用的通信策略的系统设计提供严格的理论基础来填补这一空白。为此，它首先揭示了几个未探索的设计选择，包括服务规则、流量整形策略和延迟感知决策，对实现的应用性能具有重要影响。然后，通过在非凸优化、随机网络控制和随机化/近似算法中开发新的方法和数学工具，系统地利用这些新的设计维度来优化服务于与延迟相关的短期和与吞吐量相关的长期应用需求。在该项目中开发的洞察力和数学工具有望在为具有一系列延迟敏感性和吞吐量要求(在医疗保健、救援行动、安全、自动化控制等)的关键服务的未来网络设计有效的通信协议方面发挥重要作用。该协会还将受益于该项目在培训未来工程师和研究人员方面的教育方面。

Multi-hop wireless networks that are envisioned to form the backbone of many future communication systems are: typically subject to restrictive and unpredictably changing resource constraints; required to operate using low complexity and scalable operations; envisioned to serve essential applications with a range of long-term (e.g. throughput-greedy, long-duration applications) to short-term (e.g. delay-sensitive, short-duration applications) requirements. Yet, there is a huge gap in our understanding of how to design wireless network controllers operating under such harsh conditions that can efficiently serve diverse applications, especially those that have various degrees of delay sensitivities.This research fills this gap by developing a rigorous theoretical foundation for the methodical design of communication strategies for effectively supporting diverse applications in general multi-hop wireless networks. To that end, it first reveals the significant impact of several unexplored design choices, including the service discipline, traffic shaping strategy, and delay-aware decision making, on the achieved application performances. Then, it systematically exploits these new design dimensions for optimally serving both delay-related short-term and throughput-related long-term application requirements by developing new approaches and mathematical tools within non-convex optimization, stochastic network control, and randomized/approximate algorithms. The insights and mathematical tools developed within this project are expected to play an instrumental role in the design of efficient communication protocols for tomorrow's networks serving vital services with a range of delay sensitivities and throughput requirements (in health-care, rescue operations, security, automated control, etc.). The society will also benefit from the educational aspects of the project in the training of future engineers and researchers.