CIF: Small: Transcoding: A New Approach For Multi-hop Communications

作为现代无所不在的通信和计算背后的主要驱动力之一，新的5G无线技术旨在大幅扩大覆盖范围(互联设备数量的10-100倍)，并特别关注支持低功率物联网(IoT)设备，这将进一步推动未来十年电信和高科技行业正在进行的革命。支撑5G和Beyond标准最新发展的一项关键技术是使用多跳无线连接和先进的回程，以实现灵活的范围和覆盖范围扩展。尽管如此，行业标准的多跳通信方案仍然基于40年前开发的概念，相对于5G网络及更高级别的高吞吐量(1-10Gbps)和低延迟(1ms)要求，这些概念会导致高得令人无法忍受的高复杂性和长延迟。因此，迫切需要新的多跳通信模式，同时优化吞吐量、延迟和复杂性。该项目提出了一种名为代码转换的新多跳通信模式，这是对已有40年历史的工业标准解码转发的迫切需要。具体地说，代码转换采用回归基本的方法，重新检查和分析解码和放大转发策略的长延迟和高复杂性的原因。然后将相应地设计新的策略，这将显著改善多跳通信的时延权衡性能，同时显著降低复杂性。通过摆脱译码-放大-转发范例，转码的全新设计理念充分利用了单跳无线通信和信息理论中令人兴奋的最新发展。该项目的结果将导致新的结构化、低复杂性的多跳转码器，实现新兴的5G和物联网应用所需的高吞吐量和低延迟。该项目的方法和活动包括理论能力分析、新的信号处理设计、网络资源优化、试验台实施和性能验证。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

As one of the main driving forces behind modern ubiquitous communication and computing, new 5G wireless technologies aim for substantially broader coverage (10-100x number of connected devices) with special focus on supporting low-power Internet-of-Things (IoT) devices, which will further propel the ongoing revolution within the telecommunications and high-tech industries for the next decade. One key technique underpinning the latest development of 5G and beyond standards is the use of multi-hop wireless connections and advanced backhauling to enable flexible extension of range and coverage area. Nonetheless, the industry-standard multi-hop communication schemes are still based on concepts developed 40 years ago, which incur intolerably high complexity and long delay with respect to the high throughput (1-10Gbps) and low latency (1ms) requirements of 5G networks and beyond. There is thus an urgent need for new multi-hop communication paradigms that simultaneously optimize throughput, delay, and complexity.This project proposes a new multi-hop communication paradigm called transcoding, a much needed revamp of the 40-year old industry standard called decode-and-forward. Specifically, transcoding takes a back-to-basics approach, which reexamines and analyzes the causes of the long-delay and high-complexity of the decode-&-forward policies. New strategies will then be designed accordingly, which will substantially improve the delay-tradeoff performance of multi-hop communications while significantly lowering the complexity. By breaking away from the decode-&-forward paradigm, the fundamentally new design philosophy of transcoding takes full advantage of the exciting recent development in single-hop wireless communications and in information theory. The results of this project will lead to new structured, low-complexity multi-hop "transcoders" that achieve high-throughput and low-latency necessary for the emerging 5G and IoT applications. The approaches and activities in this project include theoretical capacity analysis, new signal processing designs, network resource optimization, and testbed implementation and performance verification.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.