I-Corps: Efficient Terrain-Based Measurement Gathering for Path Loss Inference

I-Corps：用于路径损耗推断的高效基于地形的测量收集

• 批准号: 1600549
• 负责人: Joseph Camp
• 金额: $ 5万
• 依托单位: Southern Methodist University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2015
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2015-12-15 至 2016-05-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1600549&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Corps; Efficient; Terrain; Based; Measurement

To address multi-fold increases in cellular network demand, carrier cell range sizes have shifted downwards to maximize network capacity. In doing so, accurate and fine-grained estimation of coverage becomes a critical issue for spatial reuse, intercell interference, and smooth handoffs between cells. Historically, in-field experimentation has been used by telecommunication companies to estimate wireless propagation characteristics of a given region, which is costly due to the manpower and equipment resources required. The emerging popularity of smartphones offers a far cheaper alternative, recording in-field network observations directly from the cellular users via crowdsourcing. However, crowdsourcing often provides incomplete measurement coverage to accurately infer path loss. Further complicating the issue, different sub-regions can require differing amounts of measurements to achieve the same path loss characterization accuracy. This I-Corps team has developed a system that uses geographical feature information (e.g., building heights, foliage, free space) to predict measurement collection requirements over a region using a statistical learning framework, allowing network operators to optimize their measurement collection strategy.The proposed work will lower the financial barrier to and increase the assurance of coverage in rolling out new cellular generations and/or frequency bands over a given region of users. The project will also allow increased confidence in leveraging crowd-sourced information from users as opposed to relying on costly drive testing, thereby saving manpower and allowing a quicker feedback loop in terms of network performance. The project will allow the team members to develop commercial acumen that could increase the quality and fidelity of their research as well as train other students at all levels that have intellectual capital that could be commercially viable. By participating in the I-Corps curriculum, this team intends to clearly identify the exact amount current carriers spend, and the amount customers would be willing to pay for the proposed service.

为了解决蜂窝网络需求的成倍增长，载波小区范围大小已经向下移动以最大化网络容量。在这样做时，准确和细粒度的覆盖范围估计成为空间复用、小区间干扰和小区间平滑切换的关键问题。历史上，电信公司已经使用现场实验来估计给定区域的无线传播特性，由于所需的人力和设备资源，这是昂贵的。智能手机的日益普及提供了一种更便宜的替代方案，通过众包直接记录来自蜂窝用户的现场网络观察。然而，众包通常提供不完整的测量覆盖以准确地推断路径损耗。使问题进一步复杂化的是，不同的子区域可能需要不同的测量量来实现相同的路径损耗表征精度。这个I-Corps团队开发了一个使用地理特征信息的系统（例如，建筑物高度、树叶、自由空间）来预测使用统计学习框架的区域上的测量收集要求，从而允许网络运营商优化其测量收集策略。所提出的工作将降低在给定用户区域上推出新蜂窝代和/或频带的财务障碍并增加覆盖的保证。该项目还将提高利用来自用户的众包信息的信心，而不是依赖昂贵的驱动测试，从而节省人力，并在网络性能方面实现更快的反馈循环。该项目将允许团队成员开发商业敏锐度，可以提高他们的研究质量和保真度，以及培训其他学生在所有级别的智力资本，可以在商业上可行。通过参加I-Corps课程，该团队打算清楚地确定当前运营商的确切支出，以及客户愿意为拟议服务支付的金额。