Efficient Service Provisioning in Wireless Heterogeneous Networks with Ubiquitous Computing

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Driven by the popularity of Internet of things and proliferation of mobile devices, we have witnessed the emergence of various computation-intensive applications, e.g., augmented reality, autonomous driving, and smart cities. Constrained by limited energy and computing capacities of end devices, future wireless networks will play a vital role in accommodating those applications by incorporating various computing facilities such as cloud computing and edge computing. In addition, to meet service demand anytime anywhere, non-terrestrial networks such as unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) or high-altitude platforms (HAPs) will be integrated in the network architecture to provide on-demand cost-effective coverage in rural or underserved areas. Consequently, future wireless networks will become a highly heterogeneous, dynamic, and complex system with convergence of communication and computing. To support a wide range of applications with diversified quality of service (QoS) requirements in a scalable, adaptive, and cost-effective way, there are many challenges to be addressed. First, great heterogeneity in the system makes analysis and management very complex, e.g., various wireless links and coverage of ground and aerial base stations (BSs), distinct computing servers, and heterogeneous resources. Second, diversified and dynamic service requests with various QoS requirements in terms of latency, throughput and security, need to be served efficiently. Third, high dynamics and multi-dimensional randomness in wireless networks pose great challenges for service provisioning, e.g., time-changing wireless channel conditions, spatial-temporal fluctuation of traffic, varying workloads of edge servers, and burst user requests. Last but not least, this heterogeneous network will incur considerable energy consumption for communication and computing, resulting in high operating expenses (OPEX). This research program aims at addressing the fundamental research challenges by developing novel network management solutions in future wireless heterogonous networks with convergence of communication and computing. This innovative research program will mainly investigate three research themes: i) Scalable computational task scheduling and resource management in wireless heterogeneous networks with QoS guarantee; ii) sustainable and adaptive network control; and iii) dynamic network slicing and function orchestration for heterogeneous service provisioning. By applying optimization, artificial intelligence, stochastic processes, Markov decision process, game theory, etc., it is anticipated that this research program will develop a new set of systematic solutions and methodologies for resource management and service provisioning in wireless heterogeneous networks with ubiquitous computing. It will also contribute to the training of highly qualified personnel in wireless networks and edge computing, and enable them to contribute to the Canadian high technology industry.