CAREER: Towards Broadband and UAV-Assisted Heterogeneous Networks for Public Safety Communications

公共安全通信（PSC）可以在发生火灾、恐怖袭击或自然灾害等事件时帮助挽救生命、财产和国家基础设施。直到最近，这种通信主要由在窄频谱带中操作的无线技术来处理。然而，这些技术无法满足公共安全要求，例如需要视频流功能的深度态势感知功能。这项研究提出了使用无人机（UAV）沿着蜂窝技术在一个新的和变革的框架，将作为下一代PSC系统的支柱。获得所提出的架构的益处需要解决若干技术挑战，包括：1）潜在地受损的网络基础设施，如在地震之后，导致严重的连接问题; 2）空中和地面基站以及用户设备之间动态变化的干扰，阻碍宽带吞吐量; 3）以切换失败的形式出现的无缝连接问题，动态干扰和基础设施移动性加剧了无缝连接问题。为了应对这些挑战，拟议的研究将制定一个跨学科的研究议程，将宽带无线网络、无人机通信、软件定义无线电、强化学习和随机几何结合到一个综合的协同框架中。该项目将引入几项创新，涉及自组织干扰和移动性管理技术，以实现PSC网络的无处不在的宽带连接。将开发一个具有强大无人机和无线电设备的综合硬件/软件PSC测试平台，以验证、评估和改进所提出的解决方案。理论和实验结果将通过在关键任务PSC场景中实现实时无线多媒体和深度态势感知能力，在PSC系统中开辟新天地。密切的工业合作将加强拟议的试验台，原型设计和教育工作，并允许在工业实验室培训本科生/研究生。对当地高中的推广活动将吸引代表性不足的少数民族，特别是西班牙裔，进入STEM领域和无线网络领域。

Public safety communication (PSC) can help save lives, property, and national infrastructure in case of incidents such as fires, terrorist attacks or natural disasters. Until recently, such communication has been mostly handled by wireless technologies operating in narrow spectrum bands. However, such technologies fall short of addressing public safety requirements, such as deep situational awareness features that necessitate video streaming capabilities. This research proposes the use of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) along with cellular technologies within a novel and transformative framework that will serve as the pillar of next generation PSC systems. Reaping the benefits of the proposed architecture requires addressing several technical challenges including: 1) potentially damaged network infrastructure, as in the aftermath of an earthquake, causing severe connectivity problems; 2) dynamically varying interference between aerial and ground base stations as well as user equipment, hindering broadband throughput; 3) seamless connectivity problems, in the form of handover failures, exacerbated by dynamic interference and infrastructure mobility. For addressing these challenges, the proposed research will lay down an interdisciplinary research agenda that combines broadband wireless networks, UAV communications, software defined radios, reinforcement learning, and stochastic geometry, into an integrated and synergistic framework. The project will introduce several innovations that involve self organizing interference and mobility management techniques to achieve ubiquitous broadband connectivity for PSC networks. A comprehensive hardware/software PSC testbed with powerful UAV and radio equipment will be developed to validate, evaluate, and improve the proposed solutions. The theoretical and experimental outcomes will break new ground in PSC systems by enabling real-time wireless multimedia and deep situational awareness capabilities in mission-critical PSC scenarios. Close industrial collaboration will reinforce the proposed testbed, prototyping, and educational efforts, and allow training of undergraduate/graduate students in industrial labs. Outreach activities to local high-schools will attract underrepresented minorities, particularly Hispanics, into STEM areas and the field of wireless networks.