NeTS: Medium: Collaborative Research: Unifying Network Coding and Cross-Layer Optimization for Wireless Mesh Networks: From Theory to Distributed Algorithms to Implementation

无线Mesh网络承诺为将高带宽、低延迟的应用程序带入家庭提供灵活且经济高效的解决方案。设计高性能Mesh网络的两种正交但极具吸引力的方法是网络编码和跨层优化。前者通过巧妙的信息处理将干扰的无线媒体用作广播通道，而后者则跨层智能地分配和共享网络资源。这个项目研究了网络编码和跨层优化的长期和极具挑战性的协同结合。跨不同网络流进行编码的会话间网络编码(INC)的特征是NP难的。尽管如此，在重要的实际环境下，这个问题是可以处理的。基于新的基于路径的特征，该项目在存在不同的实用INC方案的情况下严格量化了网络容量。提出了一种新的基于网络编码的跨层模型来控制Mesh网络，该模型考虑了健壮性、可扩展性和时变的无线广播环境等实际因素。新的分布式、低开销协议在普渡大学校园的网状试验床上构建和验证。该项目积极招募本科生和代表性不足的学生。研究成果通过网络和会议和期刊上的出版物传播。该项目的结果，从理论探索到实际试验台上的协议部署，导致了实现网状网络全部功能所需的显著性能提升，这反过来又有可能给电信业带来革命性的变化。该奖项是根据2009年《美国复苏和再投资法案》(公法111-5)提供资金的。

Wireless mesh networks promise a flexible and cost-effective solution for bringing high-bandwidth low-latency applications to the home. Two orthogonal but immensely attractive approaches for designing high-performance mesh networks are network coding and cross-layer optimization. The former exploits the interfering wireless media as a broadcast channel by ingenious information processing, while the latter intelligently allocates and shares network resources across the layers. This project investigates the long-overdue and highly challenging synergistic union of network coding and cross-layer optimization. The characterization of intersession network coding (INC), coding across different network flows, is NP-hard. Nonetheless, the problem can be made tractable under important practical settings. Based on new path-based characterizations, this project rigorously quantifies the network capacity in presence of different practical INC schemes. A new network-coding based cross-layer paradigm is developed for controlling mesh networks that takes into account practical considerations such as robustness, scalability, and time-varying wireless broadcast environment. New distributed, low-overhead protocols are constructed and validated over a mesh testbed on the Purdue University campus. Undergraduates and under-represented students are actively recruited for the project. Research results are disseminated via the web and through publications in conferences and journals. The results of the project, spanning from theoretic exploration to protocol deployment on a practical testbed lead to the significant performance gains necessary to realize the full capability of mesh networks, which in turn has the potential to revolutionize the telecommunications industry. This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5).