Cooperative and self-organizing wireless networks for machine-to-machine communications

在接下来的几十年里，由于机器对机器(M2M)通信的需求，互联网的增长将会加快。无线网络技术是未来M2M网络的关键推动因素。M2M无线网络的发展仍然面临几个关键挑战，包括不断增长的需求、有限的无线资源、有限的无线设备能源和计算能力以及不可持续的能源成本带来的可扩展性、可靠性、复杂性和效率问题。 为了应对这些挑战，拟议的研究旨在开发新的横向和纵向合作网络机会，并为大规模、高密度的M2M无线网络开发可扩展、灵活、可靠、高效和健壮的具有自组织网络(SON)功能的网络解决方案。有了SON功能，无线设备可以自动识别网络环境，与其他设备交换信息，调整和优化其协议配置和参数，以确保以协作方式覆盖、服务质量以及能量和频谱效率。水平协作是指多个通信对等体之间的协作，而垂直协作是指在网络协议栈的各个层中设计和优化可重构协议的跨层方法。SON架构促进了先进的协作网络解决方案，它们的结合将导致未来无线网络如何构建、管理和使用的新范式。 具体地说，我们将在以下方面研究和开发新的解决方案：(A)支持自优化的协作和拓扑感知调制和物理层网络编码；(B)支持自组织的协作和自适应拓扑控制和路由；以及(C)用于高密度、协作的M2M网络的可重构媒体访问控制(MAC)。在研究过程中，除了广泛使用的排队论和随机优化工具外，我们还将利用和进一步发展随机几何、渗流理论、现代控制和优化方面的分析工具。实验将使用模拟、仿真和原型试验台相结合的方式进行，以验证分析并调查建议解决方案的可行性和性能。 拟议的多学科研究将为参与的学生和研究人员提供一个丰富的环境，让他们学习并进一步创造新的知识和网络研究工具，供其他研究人员和工程师使用。建议的协作和自组织网络解决方案将有助于未来机器到机器网络的成功，这些网络可以支持许多新服务和应用，从而提高加拿大经济的竞争力。

The growth of the Internet will accelerate in the following decades thanks to the demand of machine-to-machine (M2M) communications. Wireless networking technologies are a key enabler for future M2M networks. There are still several critical challenges of the growth of M2M wireless networks, including the scalability, reliability, complexity and efficiency concerns given the ever-increasing demand, limited wireless resources, limited energy and computing power of wireless devices, and unsustainable energy costs. To tackle these challenges, the proposed research is aiming to exploit new cooperative networking opportunities both horizontally and vertically, and develop scalable, flexible, reliable, efficient, and robust network solutions with self-organizing network (SON) functionalities for large-scale, high-density M2M wireless networks. With SON functionalities, wireless devices can automatically recognize the network environment, exchange information with other devices, adjust and optimize their protocol configurations and parameters to ensure coverage, service quality, and energy and spectrum efficiency in a cooperative fashion. Horizontal cooperation is among multiple communicating peers and vertical cooperation refers to a cross-layer approach to designing and optimizing reconfigurable protocols in various layers of the network protocol stack. The SON architecture facilitates advanced cooperative networking solutions, and the combination of them will lead to a new paradigm of how future wireless networks will be built, managed and used. Specifically, we will investigate and develop new solutions in (a) cooperative and topology-aware modulation and physical-layer network coding supporting self-optimization, (b) cooperative and adaptive topology control and routing supporting self-organization, and (c) reconfigurable medium access control (MAC) for high-density, cooperative M2M networks. During the research, in addition to the widely-employed queueing theory and stochastic optimization tools, we will leverage and further develop analytical tools in stochastic geometry, percolation theory, modern control and optimization. Experiments will be conducted using a combination of simulation, emulation, and prototyping testbeds to validate the analysis and investigate the feasibility and performance of the proposed solutions. The proposed multi-disciplinary research will provide a rich environment for the students and researchers involved to learn and further create new knowledge and networking research tools that will be useful by other researchers and engineers. The proposed cooperative and self-organizing networking solutions will contribute to the success of future machine-to-machine networks that can underpin many new services and applications, and thus improve the competitive edge of the Canadian economy.