Low-Latency and Reliable Wireless Pipeline for Internet-of-Things

物联网（IoT）可以为物理世界中的事物和设备以及数字世界中的相关信息提供无处不在的连接。物联网应用预计将降低成本，提高生产力，并提供新的收入来源。物联网支出将在整个预测期内保持两位数的年增长率，直到2022年，全球支出将在2022年超过1万亿美元[IDC 2019年预测]。无线技术是物联网时代的关键推动力。为了支持未来大规模物联网应用分散在大区域，在解决高可靠性，低延迟和广覆盖需求方面存在几个关键挑战。传统的分层互联网架构和无线解决方案难以满足物联网应用对延迟和可靠性的严格要求。考虑到物联网数据流量的新特点和需求，我们提出了一种基于无线管道概念的新型网络架构。无线信号可以沿着多跳无线管道传播，其中同步传输被调度，使得信息可以在管道内以接近传播速度被转发。这种虚拟电路交换型架构可以确保长距离上的低延迟、高可靠性传输。与传统的虚拟电路交换网络不同，在无线管道网络中，每条有线通信链路的资源是相互正交的，管道内部和不同管道之间的相互干扰是不可避免的。在无线损伤和相互干扰的情况下，我们将基于软件定义网络和网络功能虚拟化平台，开发先进的信号处理技术、有效的协议和优化的控制机制，以确保低延迟、高可靠性和高效率。物联网系统的另一个挑战是移动性和动态拓扑。我们将研究快速和强大的管道建立和维护协议，有效的拓扑控制和移动性管理。最后，网络物理系统的物联网技术应该灵活地处理系统控制目标，因此物联网控制策略和无线管道通信协议将被联合设计和优化。拟议的无线管道架构和协议将成为未来物联网研究中学术界与工业界合作的基础，以及开发软件定义无线电和基于软件定义网络的测试平台，以进行验证、性能评估和技术转让。

Internet-of-Things (IoT) can provide ubiquitous connectivity for things and devices in the physical world and the related information in the digital world. IoT applications are anticipated to reduce costs, improve productivity, and provide new revenue sources. IoT spending will maintain a double-digit annual growth rate throughout the forecast period till 2022 and the global spending will surpass US$1 trillion in 2022 [IDC forecast in 2019]. Wireless technologies are a key enabler in the IoT era. To support future massive IoT applications scattering in large areas, there exist several critical challenges in addressing the high-reliability, low-latency, and wide-coverage requirements. Traditional layered Internet architecture and wireless solutions have difficulty dealing with the stringent delay and reliability requirements of IoT applications. Considering the new features and requirements of IoT data traffic, we propose to develop a novel network architecture built on the concept of wireless pipeline. Wireless signals can propagate along a multi-hop wireless pipeline, where synchronized transmissions are scheduled so the information can be forwarded within the pipeline close to the propagation speed. Such a virtual-circuit switching type architecture can ensure low-latency, high-reliability transmissions over long distances. Different from classic virtual-circuit switching networks where the resources of each wired communication links are orthogonal to each other, for wireless pipelines, mutual interferences within the pipeline and among different pipelines are unavoidable. Given the wireless impairments and mutual interference, we will develop advanced signal processing technologies, effective protocols, and optimized control mechanisms to ensure low latency, high reliability, and high efficiency, based on the software-defined networking and network function virtualization platform. Another challenge for IoT systems is mobility and dynamic topology. We will investigate fast and robust pipeline establishment and maintenance protocols for effective topology control and mobility management. Finally, IoT technologies for cyber-physical systems should be agile to deal with the system control objectives, so the IoT control strategies and the wireless pipeline communication protocols will be jointly designed and optimized. The proposed wireless pipeline architecture and protocols will form the basis for future academic-industry collaborations in IoT research, and for developing software-defined radio and software-defined networking-based test platform for validation, performance evaluation, and technology transfer.