NeTS: Small: Collaborative Research: Theory, Algorithms, and Experiments for Frequency-Agile Beamforming Mesh (FabMesh)

FCC计划到2020年将1900万未获得服务的美国人连接到宽带。 由于有线基础设施的成本超过了潜在的收入机会，这些农村地区尚未完全与互联网连接。即使在拥有足够有线基础设施的人口密集环境中，拥挤的体育场、灾难恢复区和公共交通仍然存在容量问题。上述每个接入挑战似乎都非常适合无线网状网络，但尚未完全解决。然而，最近，在不同频带中操作的无线电设备（例如，TV白色空间）与新兴的多天线方案。在这个项目中，多用户波束成形和不同的频带被利用，以显着地建立在网状网络最初寻求的灵活性。在此过程中，频率捷变波束成形网状网（FabMesh）网络寻求根据用户数量和流量需求真正扩展复杂性和成本。这项工作包括三个关键创新：（i）使用上下文信息和高级物理层技术来改进客户端的性能和可靠性的客户端侧、波束成形感知和频率捷变协议，（ii）利用多用户波束成形的网状网络中的媒体访问控制的空间重用和容量的分析，以及（iii）可缩放的网络部署，其根据网络需求利用沿着回程的多用户波束成形和跨多个频带的自适应。该项目包括为各级大学生提供的一些实践课程，为数千名在线学生提供的“及时”教学方法，向代表性不足的学生和社区进行宣传，以及关键的工业合作，以加速FabMesh网络的商业采用。

The FCC seeks to connect 19 million unserved Americans to broadband by 2020. These rural areas have yet to be fully connected to the Internet due to wireline infrastructure costs which exceed potential revenue opportunities. Even in heavily-populated environments with sufficient wireline infrastructure, capacity issues remain in congested stadiums, disaster recovery zones, and public transportation. Each aforementioned access challenge seemingly is well-suited for wireless mesh networks, but have yet to be fully solved. However, recently, there has been a sizable growth in radios operating in diverse frequency bands (e.g., TV white spaces) with emerging multi-antenna schemes. In this project, multi-user beamforming and diverse frequency bands are leveraged to significantly build upon the flexibility originally sought by mesh networks. In doing so, frequency-agile beamforming mesh (FabMesh) networks seek to truly scale in complexity and cost according to the user population and traffic demand. The work includes three key innovations: (i) client-side, beamforming-aware, and frequency-agile protocols to improve performance and reliability of clients, using contextual information and advanced physical layer techniques, (ii) analysis of spatial reuse and capacity for media access control in mesh networks which leverage multi-user beamforming, and (iii) scalable network deployments which leverage multi-user beamforming along the backhaul and adaptation across multiple frequency bands according to network demand. The project includes a number of hands-on courses for university students at all levels, "just in time" pedagogical approaches to thousands of online students, outreach to under-represented students and communities, and key industrial collaborations to accelerate the commercial adoption of FabMesh networks.