Career: Fundamental Studies of Sustainable Wireless Communication System Powered by Renewable Energy

以可再生能源为动力的无线通信已经成为一种很有前途的解决方案，可以减少碳足迹，实现绿色无线网络。然而，可再生能源，如太阳能和风能，其可用性和容量本质上是不稳定的，这给可持续通信网络的设计和部署带来了新的挑战。该项目将开发理论工具，提出新的协议和跨层优化方法，以实现能源可持续的通信网络。这个多学科的项目也将促进研究与教育的融合，为本科生和研究生，特别是女性和少数民族学生提供参加各种培训项目的机会，进一步激发学生以批判性思维进行高质量的研究。在可再生能源供电的通信网络中，基本设计标准和主要性能指标已经从能源效率转向能源可持续性，即确保收集的能源能够以令人满意的服务提供质量维持用户需求。在这个项目中，首先制定了一个新的性能指标，能源可持续性，在此基础上，通信系统的能源可持续性能将被系统地分析，表征动态能量充放电过程。该分析将用于研究可持续通信和网络的一系列基础研究问题，包括能源管理、网络部署、准入控制、自适应资源分配和媒介访问控制。将使用排队论、博弈论、随机优化、概率论和随机过程等分析工具，设计、分析和优化所提出的算法和协议，以确保无线通信网络的能源可持续运行。该项目的研究成果有可能在下一代可再生能源无线通信网络中实现。

Wireless communications powered by renewable energy sources have been emerging as a promising solution to mitigate the carbon footprints to achieve a green radio network. However, renewable energy sources, such as solar and wind, are by nature unstable in their availability and capacity, which poses new challenges in the design and deployment of a sustainable communication network. The project will develop theoretical tools, propose new protocols and cross-layer optimization methods to enable an energy sustainable communication network. The multidisciplinary project will also foster the integration of research and education and provide both undergraduate and graduate students, particularly women and minority students, with an opportunity to participate in various training projects, which further inspire students to pursue high quality research with critical thinking. In a renewable energy powered communication network, the fundamental design criterion and main performance metric have shifted from energy efficiency to energy sustainability, i.e., to ensure the harvested energy can sustain the user demands with satisfactory quality of service provisioning. In this project, a novel performance metric, the energy sustainability, is first formulated, based on which the energy sustainable performance of a communication system will be systematically analyzed, characterizing the dynamic energy charging and discharging processes. The analysis will be leveraged to investigate a series of fundamental research issues on sustainable communication and networking, including energy management, network deployment, admission control, adaptive resource allocation, and medium access control. Analytical tools in queueing theory, game theory, stochastic optimization, probability theory, and random processes will be used in the design, analysis, and optimization of the proposed algorithms and protocols to ensure energy sustainable operation of a wireless communication network. The research outcomes of the project have potential to be implemented in the next generation wireless communication network powered by renewable energy.