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，实现绿色无线电网络。然而，太阳能和风能等可再生能源的可获得性和容量本质上不稳定，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，以实现能源可持续通信网络。多学科项目还将促进研究和教育的整合，并为本科生和研究生，特别是女性和少数族裔学生，提供参加各种培训项目的机会，这些项目进一步激励学生以批判性思维追求高质量的研究。在可再生能源供电的通信网络中，基本设计准则和主要性能指标已经从能量效率转向能量可持续性，即确保收获的能量能够以令人满意的服务质量提供支持用户的需求。在本项目中，首次提出了一种新的性能度量--能量可持续性，并在此基础上系统地分析了通信系统的能量可持续性能，刻画了能量的动态充放电过程。这一分析将被用来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、接纳控制、自适应资源分配和媒体访问控制。将使用排队论、博弈论、随机优化、概率论和随机过程中的分析工具来设计、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量可持续运行。该项目的研究成果有可能在以可再生能源为动力的下一代无线通信网络中实施。

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.