CAREER: Toward Cooperative Interference Mitigation for Heterogeneous Multi-Hop MIMO Wireless Networks

不断增长的无线系统数量和可用频谱的稀缺性需要在不同的无线网络之间进行高效的频谱共享。它们中的许多在硬件能力、无线技术或协议标准方面是异构的。如果不适当地减轻，所产生的跨技术干扰（CTI）可能对共址网络的性能有害。当前的干扰管理方法大多遵循干扰避免范例，其中传输在频率、时间或空间上分离以实现频谱共享，而不是减少或消除干扰。这个项目探讨了合作干扰缓解（CIM），异构多跳无线网络之间的一种新的共存模式。通过利用多输入多输出（MIMO）干扰消除（IC）技术的最新进展，所提出的方法允许不同的网络合作取消/减轻他们的CTI，以提高每个人？的表现。本研究的主要目标是：1）建立一个易于处理的模型/框架，分析CIM在异构多跳网络中的理论极限和性能界限，并考虑各种形式的网络异构性：2）通过一个新的博弈论框架来研究CIM的激励机制，该框架描述了相互合作的条件，并阻止自私或恶意的行为; 3）利用机器学习工具和隐式系统间通信，设计分布式性能逼近算法实现CIM，并将其集成到实际的网络/MAC层协议中。预期成果还包括开发各种模拟工具包和系统原型，以供实验验证。综合教育计划包括跨学科课程开发、学生辅导和外联。拟议的研究将对共享频谱资源的计划外异构多跳网络产生广泛影响，例如当前和未来的未授权频段网络以及TV白色空间中的二级网络。应用程序将有利于多个领域，包括医疗保健，能源，应急服务和军事等主要成果将通过会议和期刊出版物，软件包，讲座和教程传播。

The ever-growing number of wireless systems and the scarcity for available spectrum necessitates highly efficient spectrum sharing among disparate wireless networks. Many of them are heterogeneous in hardware capabilities, wireless technologies, or protocol standards. The resulting cross-technology interference (CTI) can be detrimental to the performance of co-locating networks if not properly mitigated. Current interference management approaches mostly follow the interference-avoidance paradigm, where transmissions are separated in frequency, time, or space to enable spectrum sharing, rather than to reduce or eliminate interference. This project explores cooperative interference mitigation (CIM), a new coexistence paradigm among heterogeneous multi-hop wireless networks. By exploiting recent advances in multi-input multi-output (MIMO) interference cancellation (IC) techniques, the proposed approach allows disparate networks to cooperatively cancel/mitigate their CTI to enhance everyone?s performance. This research focuses on the following objectives: 1) Develop tractable models/frameworks to analyze the theoretical limits and performance bounds of CIM for heterogeneous multi-hop networks, considering various forms of network heterogeneity; 2) Study the incentives of CIM through a novel game theoretic framework, that characterizes the conditions of mutual cooperation and thwarts selfish or malicious behavior; 3) Design distributed performance-approaching algorithms to achieve CIM and integrate them into practical network/MAC layer protocols, by exploiting machine learning tools and implicit inter-system communications. The expected outcomes also include the development of various simulation toolkits and system prototypes for experimental validation. The integrated education plan includes cross-discipline curriculum development, student mentoring and outreach. The proposed research will have broad impacts on unplanned heterogeneous multi-hop networks that share spectrum resources, such as current and future networks in unlicensed bands, and secondary networks in TV white spaces. Applications will benefit multiple domains including healthcare, energy, emergency services and military etc. Major results will be disseminated via conference and journal publications, software packages, talks and tutorials.