CAREER: Towards Green Communications Using an Information-Lens: Foundations of the Joint Design of Communication Strategies and Circuits

该研究项目旨在开发一种节能通信的系统级理论，该理论结合了传输和支持发送/接收电路中消耗的能量。现有的指导实际通信系统设计的理论基础——传统的信息论——几乎只关注传输能量。然而，对于许多现代短距离通信系统，处理电路中消耗的能量占主导地位，而不是传输能量。该研究将通过检查支持电路中的信息流来推进现有的理论和实践，以获得对总（传输+电路）能量的基本理解。将采用三层方法来减少能源消耗：(i)基础层，通过在发送端和接收端合并处理能量来扩大传统信息理论的前沿；（ii）设计层用于策略的新颖设计，包括使总能量最小化的纠错码；（iii）验证层，通过设计层中提出的策略评估各种应用的节能效果。今天，从教育、医疗保健、制造业到商业的各种应用都依赖于不间断的、无处不在的连接。因此，为了提高无线设备的电池寿命和高能量有线通信（如数据中心的以太网链路）的可持续性，保持通信网络的低能耗变得越来越重要。一般来说，传统的设计方法遵循“分工”：首先选择传输策略以最接近最小传输能量的信息论限制，然后构建最节能的电路来支持所选择的策略。该研究通过共同设计传输策略和电路来重新考虑这种分工，以最大限度地提高系统级能源效率。这项研究需要对通信、计算和电路中的概念进行简化和综合。该项目包括几项教育和推广工作，包括为K-12学生组织互动研讨会，为理论和实验课开发新材料，以培养跨学科的领导者，不仅在研究领域，而且在工业领域，这种教育对增加创新至关重要。

This research project aims to develop a system-level theory of energy efficient communication that incorporates the energy consumed in transmission as well as in the supporting transmitter/receiver circuitry. The existing theoretical foundation that guides the design of practical communication systems -- traditional information theory -- focuses almost exclusively on the transmit energy. For many modern short-distance communication systems, however, the energy consumed in the processing circuitry dominates over the transmit energy. The proposed research will advance the existing theory and practice by examining flows of information in the supporting circuitry in order to obtain a fundamental understanding of total (transmit + circuit) energy. A three-layer approach will be adopted to reduce energy consumption: (i) The Foundational Layer for expanding the frontiers of traditional information theory by incorporating processing energy at the transmitting and receiving ends; (ii) The Design Layer for novel designs of strategies including error-correcting codes that minimize the total energy; and (iii) The Validation Layer for assessing the energy reductions for various applications through strategies proposed in the Design Layer.Applications ranging from education, healthcare, manufacturing, and commerce today rely on uninterrupted and ubiquitous connectivity. Consequently, it has become increasingly important to keep the energy consumed in communication networks low, both for improving battery life of wireless devices and for sustainability of high-energy wired communication (such as ethernet links in data centers). Broadly speaking, the traditional design approach follows a "division-of-labor": the transmission strategy is first chosen to best approach the information-theoretic limits on minimum transmit energy, and then the most energy-efficient circuits are built to support the chosen strategy. The proposed research rethinks this division-of-labor by jointly designing the transmission strategy and circuits to maximize system-level energy efficiency. This research necessitates simplification and synthesis of concepts in communication, computation, and circuits. The project incorporates several educational and outreach efforts, including organizing interactive workshops for K-12 students and developing new material for both theoretical and experimental classes towards educating cross-disciplinary leaders not just in research, but also in industry where such education is essential for increased innovation.