NeTS: Collaborative Research: Assessing the Feasibility of Programming the Ambient Wireless Environment

NeTS：协作研究：评估对周围无线环境进行编程的可行性

• 批准号: 1763212
• 负责人: Wenjun Hu
• 金额: $ 11.38万
• 依托单位: Yale University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2018
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2018-05-01 至 2020-04-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1763212&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: NeTS; Collaborative; Research; Assessing; Feasibility

Wireless connectivity has become an indispensable utility in everyday life. Far beyond providing basic communications, wireless infrastructure comprises the backbone of the control and management functions of many Internet of Things (IoT) ecosystems, ranging from smart home solutions to autonomous vehicles. Therefore, countless efforts have been made to ensure the efficiency and reliability of such critical infrastructure. Against this backdrop, this project follows the same overarching theme of improving wireless infrastructure towards faster and seamless connectivity. From a scientific perspective, the project seeks to investigate the feasibility of fundamentally transforming the technical approach to wireless network design by shifting the focus from the data networks themselves to the ambient environment. From an industrial perspective, the project opens the way for the contribution of techniques to both improve cellular network link quality and enable co-existence of Wi-Fi technologies in dense urban deployments, where interference limits their effectiveness. From an educational perspective, the project has the potential to change the way academia teaches the topic of wireless communications and the wireless channel to undergraduate students and graduate students alike.The traditional approach to optimizing wireless networks revolves around the wireless endpoints, i.e., the transmitters and the receivers, and takes the wireless channel as a hard constraint, invoking a multitude of solutions to fully utilize that channel. This project will instead focus on whether it is feasible to optimize the ambient wireless environment. Instead of changing the ways in which endpoints behave, the project will explore ways of changing the perceived channel along the wireless link to create more favorable conditions for wireless communication. Specifically, the team will explore how to instrument the wireless environment with small wireless elements to effect changes in the wireless channel that a wireless receiver measures from a wireless sender. A substrate comprising these elements is then combined with a control infrastructure that measures the channels between wireless senders and receivers in real time, and actuates the element substrate in order to effect channel variations. As a proof of concept, the team will explore using this design to improve individual links as well as reduce interference between concurrent links.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

无线连接已成为日常生活中不可或缺的实用工具。无线基础设施远远超出了提供基本通信的范围，还包括许多物联网（IoT）生态系统的控制和管理功能的骨干，从智能家居解决方案到自动驾驶汽车。因此，为确保这种关键基础设施的效率和可靠性作出了无数努力。在此背景下，该项目遵循相同的总体主题，即改善无线基础设施，实现更快、更无缝的连接。从科学的角度来看，该项目旨在通过将重点从数据网络本身转移到周围环境来研究从根本上改变无线网络设计技术方法的可行性。从工业的角度来看，该项目为技术的贡献开辟了道路，以提高蜂窝网络链路质量，并使Wi-Fi技术在密集的城市部署中共存，其中干扰限制了它们的有效性。从教育的角度来看，该项目有可能改变学术界向本科生和研究生教授无线通信和无线信道主题的方式。传统的优化无线网络的方法围绕着无线端点，即，发射机和接收机，并采取无线信道作为硬约束，调用大量的解决方案，以充分利用该信道。该项目将重点关注优化周围无线环境是否可行。该项目将探索改变无线链路沿着感知信道的方法，以创造更有利的无线通信条件，而不是改变端点的行为方式。具体来说，该团队将探索如何用小型无线元件来测量无线环境，以影响无线接收器从无线发送器测量的无线信道的变化。然后，将包括这些元件的基板与控制基础结构组合，该控制基础结构真实的测量无线收发器和接收器之间的信道，并且致动元件基板以实现信道变化。作为概念验证，该团队将探索使用此设计来改善单个链接以及减少并发链接之间的干扰。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

项目成果

Towards Programming the Radio Environment with Large Arrays of Inexpensive Antennas

• 发表时间: 2019
• 作者: Zhuqi Li;Yaxiong Xie;Longfei Shangguan;R. I. Zelaya;J. Gummeson;Wenjun Hu;Kyle Jamieson

Wireless Sensing Using Dynamic Metasurface Antennas: Challenges and Opportunities

• DOI: 10.1109/mcom.001.1900696
• 发表时间: 2020-06
• 期刊: IEEE Communications Magazine
• 影响因子: 11.2
• 作者: Guohao Lan;M. Imani;P. Hougne;Wenjun Hu;David R. Smith;M. Gorlatova