NeTS: Small: Large-Scale Opportunistic Data Crowdsourcing and Dissemination in Device-to-Device (D2D) Networks

当今绝大多数无线通信系统都在3ghz以下的微波频谱中运行，这一频谱严重短缺，已经成为一种拥挤的资源。为了应对移动宽带业务增长1000倍的挑战，已经确定了工作频率在20至300 GHz之间的毫米波（mmWave）频段，用于下一代（5G）蜂窝系统。虽然毫米波频段的使用解决了更多无线频谱的迫切需求，但它带来了一系列新的独特技术挑战，如严重的路径损耗和不希望的覆盖漏洞。为此，建议设备到设备（D2D）网络采用短距离无线链路在移动用户之间建立机会连接。在这个项目中，研究人员将探索D2D中各种面向应用的问题，最终形成新的基础理论和先进技术，为下一代移动通信系统的发展做出贡献。这个项目将有效地促进跨广泛领域的多学科合作，包括人类学、通信、计算机科学、经济学、公共卫生、人口学和社会学。通过实施和实验活动，有效丰富课程内容，为学生提供实践经验。拟议的研究包括两个研究重点，以设计、实施、评估和原型化新的协议和算法，以支持D2D中有效的数据收集和传播。首先，一类应用程序涉及从移动设备收集大规模数据。虽然众包近年来一直在讨论，但由于独特的非确定性网络范式，众包和D2D的结合创造了新的，有趣的研究问题。研究人员将研究支持基于2d的众包的几个维度，包括基于竞争的延迟敏感应用程序参与者招募方案和有效的任务算法来传递众包请求。其次，在许多D2D应用中，高效的数据传播是必不可少的。与先前的工作不同，研究人员主要关注从一个源到一组给定的接收器的经典多播，他们提出研究一个独特而有趣的问题，即接收器不明确已知。在这种设置中，一种自然的方法是在一些存储库中分发数据，这些存储库根据请求进一步将内容交付给感兴趣的数据消费者。在此框架下，研究人员将设计算法来选择最优的存款人，以最大化总利润，并制定新的激励方案，以实现有效的传播。补充这些研究推力的是实验原型和验证轨道，通过实验研究，评估和改进各种设计选择和替代方案。

The vast majority of today's wireless communication systems operate in the microwave spectrum below 3 GHz, which is experiencing severe shortage and has become a crowded resource. To meet the 1000x growth challenge in mobile broadband traffic, the millimeter wave (mmWave) band, operating at frequencies between 20 and 300 GHz, has been identified for next-generation (5G) cellular systems. While the use of mmWave band addresses the pressing needs of more wireless spectrum, it brings a new set of unique technical challenges such as severe path loss and undesired coverage holes. To this end, Device-to-Device (D2D) networks are proposed to employ short-range wireless links to establish opportunistic connections between mobile users. In this project, the researchers will explore a diversity of application-oriented problems in D2D, culminating in the formulation of both new fundamental theories and advanced technologies that contribute to the development of next-generation mobile communication systems. This project will effectively stimulate multi-disciplinary collaboration across a broad spectrum of fields, including anthropology, communications, computer science, economics, public health, demography, and sociology. It will also effectively enrich courses by implementation and experimental activities, providing students with hands-on experience.The proposed research includes two research thrusts to design, implement, evaluate, and prototype new protocols and algorithms, in support of efficient data gathering and dissemination in D2D. First, a class of applications involve large-scale data gathering from mobile devices. Although crowdsourcing has been discussed in recent years, the marriage of crowdsourcing and D2D creates new, interesting research problems, due to the unique non-deterministic network paradigm. The researchers will investigate several dimensions in support of D2D-based crowdsourcing, including a competition-based participant recruitment scheme for delay-sensitive applications and an effective quest algorithm to deliver crowdsourcing requests. Second, efficient data dissemination is indispensable in many D2D applications. In contrast to the prior work that focuses on classical multicasting from a source to a given set of receivers, the researchers propose to investigate a unique and interesting problem where the receivers are not explicitly known. In such settings, a natural approach is to distribute data at some depositories, that further deliver the content to interested data consumers upon requests. Under this framework, the researchers will devise algorithms to choose optimal depositories for maximizing the total profit and develop new incentive schemes to enable efficient dissemination. Complementing these research thrusts is an experimental prototyping and validation track, with various design choices and alternatives experimentally studied, evaluated and refined.