Distributed coherence: fundamental building blocks, system concepts, and experimental demonstration

分布式一致性：基本构建模块、系统概念和实验演示

• 批准号: 1302104
• 负责人: John McNeill
• 金额: $ 32.72万
• 依托单位: Worcester Polytechnic Institute
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Continuing Grant
• 财政年份: 2013
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2013-07-01 至 2017-06-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1302104&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Distributed; coherence; fundamental; building; blocks

Over the past two decades, advances in multi-antenna wireless systems have opened up the possibility of tremendous increases in wireless communication throughputs. The practical realization of these increases in real-world wireless networks is constrained by size and cost considerations that limit the number of antennas, especially for mobile devices. This research aims to achieve the gains from multi-antenna techniques in a distributed fashion by having groups of wireless transceivers pool together and cooperatively act like a virtual antenna array. The concept of virtual arrays has broad transformative potential for wireless networks by extending the numerous benefits of multi-antenna systems to networks of single-antenna devices. We will prototype and demonstrate virtual array techniques experimentally on a software-defined radio platform, and we plan to share our implementations as reusable building blocks to stimulate technology transition and to promote interactions between the academic, open-source software community and radio hobbyist communities. The elements of a virtual array have an unknown, typically time-varying, geometry and are driven by independent oscillators, each with stochastic drift; the main technical challenge is in maintaining distributed coherence in the array in the presence of these effects. While this is a very challenging problem, recent results have demonstrated the feasibility of virtual arrays.This research will establish a solid theoretical foundation for distributed coherence and chart a clear path to technology transfer by applying the theory and techniques to the cross-layer design of concept systems based on virtual antenna arrays. Specifically we will develop a state space framework for tracking and prediction of oscillator dynamics and mobility, and scalable architectures for distributed transmission and reception appropriate for large distributed arrays of low-cost single-antenna devices. We will also identify fundamental tradeoffs and scaling laws for virtual arrays. We will apply and integrate the theory and techniques to two concept systems of great societal significance: Distributed base station provides multi-antenna capabilities even for low carrier frequencies where standard antenna arrays would be too bulky (e.g., white space frequencies). Distributed 911, enables a cluster of nodes to communicate with a possibly moving distant rescue vehicle which would be out of range for any one of the nodes. Our goal is to perform design and performance evaluation in sufficient detail to clear conceptual hurdles for implementation.

在过去的二十年中，多天线无线系统的进步已经开启了无线通信吞吐量巨大增长的可能性。在现实世界的无线网络中，这些增加的实际实现受到限制天线数量的尺寸和成本考虑的约束，特别是对于移动的设备。本研究的目的是实现从多天线技术的增益，在分布式的方式，有组无线收发器池在一起，合作充当一个虚拟的天线阵列。虚拟阵列的概念通过将多天线系统的众多益处扩展到单天线设备的网络而对无线网络具有广泛的变革潜力。我们将在软件定义的无线电平台上实验性地原型化和演示虚拟阵列技术，并且我们计划将我们的实现作为可重复使用的构建块共享，以刺激技术转型并促进学术、开源软件社区和无线电爱好者社区之间的互动。虚拟阵列的元素具有未知的、通常随时间变化的几何形状，并且由独立的振荡器驱动，每个振荡器都具有随机漂移;主要的技术挑战是在存在这些效应的情况下保持阵列中的分布式相干性。这是一个非常具有挑战性的问题，但最近的研究成果已经证明了虚拟阵列的可行性。本研究将为分布式相干奠定坚实的理论基础，并将理论和技术应用于基于虚拟天线阵列的概念系统的跨层设计，为技术转移指明一条清晰的道路。具体来说，我们将开发一个状态空间框架，用于跟踪和预测振荡器的动态和移动性，以及适用于大型分布式阵列的低成本单天线设备的分布式传输和接收的可扩展架构。我们还将确定虚拟阵列的基本权衡和缩放定律。我们将把理论和技术应用并集成到两个具有重大社会意义的概念系统中：分布式基站提供多天线能力，即使对于标准天线阵列过于庞大的低载波频率（例如，白色空间频率）。分布式911使得节点集群能够与可能移动的远处救援车辆通信，该救援车辆将在节点中的任何一个的范围之外。我们的目标是进行设计和性能评估足够详细，以清除概念上的障碍，实现。