SGER: Scalable Cooperative Communications in Adaptive Large Scale Networks Inspired by Natural Swarms

电子设备变得更加可靠，并且可以在非常小的范围内集成。与嵌入式智能相结合的传感器满足了越来越多的应用。在本地收集和处理信息的价值与远程通信信息本身的能力密切相关。目前发展起来的通信设备的规模和用途都不能满足庞大规模的分布式、动态、限能网络的要求。此外，物理层的大部分研究都集中在信道接入上。蜂窝网络和无线局域网的设计遵循了多年来在多址研究中发展起来的原则。这些网络的骨干不是无线的，这显然使移动通信的研究朝着解决接入问题的方向分化。用传统方法将大量这些设备联网需要高昂的成本，而且很快就会与网络的动态性和每个节点的有限能力不兼容。最近的研究结果还表明，随着节点密度的增加，即使在最佳的多址和路由方案下，点对点通信也变得不可行的。这一结果加强了对设计范式转变的需求，而这正是该项目试图开创的。这个项目的主要灵感来自于观察到分布式传感能力和大规模网络上的通信在自然界中是常见的，并且是任何被称为群体的生物结构的基础。人类的智慧被认为是这种架构的一个显著例子。与人造通信网络相比，网络内的通信以一种非常不同的方式发生，并且来自非常简单的构建块。节点作为分布式源和接收器合作并聚合它们的信号，其中点对点传输完全丢失。

ABSTRACT0347514Anna ScaglioneCornell UElectronic devices become more reliable and can be integrated at very small scales. Sensors combined with embedded intelligence meet an increasing number of applications. The value of gathering and processing information locally is tied to the ability to communicate the information itself remotely. The scale of the communication devices developed thus far and their purpose do not meet the requirement of distributed, dynamic, energy limited networks of gigantic scale. I addition, most of the research at the physical layer has been focused on channel access. Cellular networks and wireless local area networks are designed following the principles developed in years of research on multiple access.The backbone of these networks is not wireless and this has clearly polarized the research on mobile communications towards solving the access problem. Networking large numbers of these devices with traditional methods requires prohibitive costs that soon become incompatible with the dynamic nature of the network and the limited capabilities of each node. Recent results also indicate that as the density of the nodes increases peer to peer communications become unfeasible, even under the best multiple access and routing scheme. This results reinforce the need of a paradigm shift in the design and this is what this project is trying to pioneer.The key inspiration in this project stems from the observation that distributed sensing ability and communications ver large scale networks are common in nature and are at the basis of any biological architecture referred to as swarm. Human intelligence is believed to be a remarkable example of such architecture. The communications within the network occur in a very different fashion compared to man-made communication networks and emerge from very simple building blocks. The nodes cooperate and aggregate their signals operating as distributed sources and receivers, where peer to peer transmissions are completely lost.