CAREER: Scalable Distributed MIMO: Towards Density-Proportional Capacity Scaling for Infrastructure Wireless Networks

职业：可扩展分布式 MIMO：实现基础设施无线网络的密度比例容量扩展

• 批准号: 1854472
• 负责人: Xinyu Zhang
• 金额: $ 39.26万
• 依托单位: University of California-San Diego
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Continuing Grant
• 财政年份: 2018
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2018-03-15 至 2020-03-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1854472&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: CAREER; Scalable; Distributed; MIMO; Towards

The proliferation of mobile devices is driving an ever-increasing demand on the capacity of infrastructure wireless networks, especially Wi-Fi. Current wireless networks can hardly meet this demand because they are interference limited -- per-user throughput decreases super-linearly with network density. Adding more access points (APs) may worsen the problem, because the APs themselves interfere with each other. The objective of this research is to overcome this fundamental limitation, and enable network capacity to scale proportionally with node density, by exploring a transformative architecture called Scalable Distributed MIMO (SDM). The principle behind SDM is to reorganize the APs into clusters. Within each cluster, the APs tightly synchronize and share data with each other. This enables them to cancel the mutual interference and scale network capacity with AP density. Different AP clusters contend for channel access in a self-organized manner, thus scaling capacity across an entire network. The long-term objective of SDM is to enable dense indoor infrastructure networks supporting Gbps per-user throughput, marking an important step towards the goals outlined in the National Broadband Plan. To realize the SDM principle, the proposed research synthesizes a comprehensive framework of tasks spanning five years, including performance modeling/analysis, network protocol/algorithm design, and implementation/experimentation on a software radio testbed. In particular, the PI plans to (i) systematically explore ways of deploying AP clusters to balance the tradeoffs between system complexity, scalability, and compatibility with legacy networks; (ii) design a new paradigm of cluster-centric network protocols that feature tight coordination between APs within a cluster and self-organization among different clusters; (iii) develop new communications algorithms that tame the coordination overhead while maximizing cluster capacity, and translate the capacity gain into improved end-user experience. The testbed used in the research tasks will be extended into a user-friendly educational platform that enhances the knowledge of wireless networks for students at different levels. The research and educational materials will be broadly disseminated for reproducibility of results.

移动设备的扩散正在推动对基础设施无线网络（尤其是Wi-Fi）能力的不断增长的需求。当前的无线网络几乎无法满足此需求，因为它们受到干扰有限 - 使用者吞吐量随着网络密度而超级线性降低。 添加更多的访问点（AP）可能会使问题恶化，因为APS本身会互相干扰。 这项研究的目的是克服这一基本限制，并通过探索称为可扩展分布的MIMO（SDM）的变革性体系结构来使网络与节点密度成比例地扩展。 SDM背后的原理是将APS重组为簇。在每个集群中，AP会紧密同步并相互共享数据。这使他们能够以AP密度取消相互干扰和规模网络容量。不同的AP群集以自组织的方式竞争通道访问，从而在整个网络上缩放能力。 SDM的长期目标是使密集的室内基础设施网络支持GBPS人均吞吐量，这标志着朝着国家宽带计划中概述的目标迈出的重要一步。 为了实现SDM原则，拟议的研究综合了五年的全面框架，包括性能建模/分析，网络协议/算法设计以及软件无线电测试中的实施/实验。特别是，PI计划（i）系统地探索部署AP群集的方式，以平衡系统复杂性，可扩展性和与传统网络的兼容性之间的权衡； （ii）设计一个以集群为中心的网络协议的新范式，该协议具有群集内的AP与不同群集之间的自我组织之间的紧密协调； （iii）开发新的通信算法，这些算法在最大化集群容量的同时驯服了协调的开销，并将容量增益转化为改进的最终用户体验。 研究任务中使用的测试平台将扩展到一个用户友好的教育平台，该平台可以增强不同级别的学生的无线网络知识。研究和教育材料将被广泛传播，以重现结果。