CIF: Small: Energy-neutral Massively Large Wireless Networks

能量收集和无线电力传输正在迅速成为改变无线系统游戏规则的技术，为永久通信设备建立自我可持续、免维护的网络提供了令人兴奋的可能性。在收集无线设备中，能量是一个随机和动态的量，它不断地产生和消耗，这导致了通信系统设计原则的根本转变。本项目的总体目标是为这种随机能量动力学下的通信系统设计奠定理论基础。这个基础可以在这些无线设备的设计中实现成本、尺寸、能源和性能之间的最佳权衡，并且对于将它们扩展到数万亿以实现真正的万物互联至关重要。该项目还通过一项计划促进研究工程师的培训，该计划设想与国内机构的系统和设备组密切互动。该项目由三部分组成。第一部分着重于点对点信道，其中传输能量由外部随机能量到达过程提供。该项目开发了一个框架，用于近似该通道的容量，并明确保证近似间隙。第二部分着眼于远程供电通信，其中外部能量到达发射器的过程可以由远程能源部分控制。它为这个问题开发了一个信息论公式，揭示了一个新的交互式编码问题，其中远程源的动作依赖于发射器的先前动作，反之亦然。第三部分阐明了如何使由这些新机制驱动的无线设备共存并合作形成大型可扩展无线网络。

Energy-harvesting and wireless power transfer are quickly becoming game-changing technologies for wireless systems by opening the exciting possibility to build self-sustainable, maintenance-free networks of perpetually communicating devices. In a harvesting wireless device, energy is a random and dynamic quantity that is continuously generated and consumed, and this leads to a fundamental shift in communication system design principles. The broad goal of this project is to lay the theoretical foundations for communication system design under such random energy dynamics. This foundation can enable optimal trade-offs between cost, size, energy and performance in the design of these wireless devices and is critical to scale them to trillions to enable the true emergence of Internet of Everything. The project also promotes the training of research engineers through a plan that envisions close interaction with system and device groups at the home institution.The project consists of three parts. The first part focuses on a point-to-point channel where the transmission energy is provided by an external random energy arrival process. The project develops a framework for approximating the capacity of this channel with explicit guarantees on the approximation gap. The second part looks at remotely powered communication, where the external energy arrival process at the transmitter can be partially controlled by a remote energy source. It develops an information-theoretic formulation for this problem that reveals a novel interactive coding problem, where actions of the remote source depend on previous actions of the transmitter and vice versa. The third part clarifies how wireless devices powered by these new mechanisms can be made to coexist and cooperate forming large scalable wireless networks.