Collaborative Research: SWIFT: Small: Cross-Layer Interference Management: Bringing Interference Alignment to Reality

随着用户规模的扩大，对无线数据流量的需求呈指数级增长，而当前满足这种扩展的方法是避免干扰。不幸的是，干扰避免技术无法满足这些扩展需求。为了支持大规模部署，需要使多个用户共享相同的频谱。换句话说，干扰必须得到缓解和利用，而不是避免。然而，先前的理论努力在实践中取得的成果微乎其微。这个项目在理论和实践之间架起了一座桥梁。PI将共同设计和开发物理层和MAC层的天线和算法，潜在地实现更具数量级的频谱效率通信。所设计的解决方案将能够连接到所有类型的设备、自动驾驶、医疗保健和物联网，并将促进社会各阶层更便宜的连接。该项目将培养研究生，促进跨学科研究。建议的活动旨在吸引所有背景的学生参与，重点是那些来自代表性不足的群体。建议的重点是开发在有限信噪比(SNR)制度下工作的干扰对齐(IA)技术。该提案有两个重点--一个侧重于上行链路，另一个侧重于下行链路。PI计划使用准随机定向天线单元来实现预期目标。(1)在基站提出新的发射和接收天线硬件结构，为干扰管理创造良好的环境；(2)开发新的物理层算法，该算法利用所建议天线的特性，并且在不需要发射机处的信道信息的情况下按数量级(S)增加共享相同频隙的用户数；(3)开发物理层算法和MAC层协议，以利用所提出的天线设计，使大量用户能够进行干扰对齐；(4)开发新的算法，使所提出的研究能够容易地部署在现有的下一代蜂窝(5G)和WIFI(WIFI-6)协议上；(5)通过硬件和软件实现的模拟和真实世界实验来评估建议的技术。这一奖项反映了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。

The demand for wireless data traffic along with the scale of users grows exponentially, while the current approach to meet such scaling is to avoid interference. Unfortunately, interference avoidance techniques cannot accommodate these scaling needs. To support large-scale deployments, there is a need to enable multiple users to share the same spectrum. In other words, the interference must be mitigated and exploited rather than avoided. However, prior theoretical efforts have resulted in minimal gains in practice. This project bridges the gap between theory and practice. The PIs will jointly design and develop antennas and algorithms in PHY and MAC layers potentially enabling orders of magnitude more spectrum-efficient communications. The designed solutions would enable connectivity to all classes of devices, autonomous driving, health-care, and IoT, and will facilitate the connectivity cheaper for all segments of society. The project will result in training graduate students and fosters interdisciplinary research. The proposed activities are designed to engage students from all backgrounds focusing on those from underrepresented groups.The proposal focuses on developing Interference Alignment (IA) techniques that work at the finite Signal-to-Noise (SNR) regime. The proposal has two thrusts - one focused on the uplink and another focused on the downlink. The PIs plan to use quasi-randomly oriented antenna elements to accomplish the desired objectives. (1) Present new transmit and receive antenna hardware structures at base-stations to create favorable environments for interference management; (2) Develop new physical-layer algorithms that exploit the characteristics of the proposed antennas and increase by order(s) of magnitude the number of users sharing the same frequency slot, without needing channel information at the transmitter; (3) Develop PHY-layer algorithms and MAC-layer protocols to exploit the proposed antenna designs to enable interference alignment for a large number of users; (4) Develop novel algorithms that enable deploying the proposed research easily on existing next-generation cellular (5G) and WiFi (WiFi-6) protocols; (5) Evaluate the proposed techniques through simulations and real-world experiments with hardware and software implementation.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.