CAREER: Towards a Formal Theory of Wireless Networking

世纪的最后几十年见证了网络的出现，网络变得越来越普遍和重要。在世纪之初，对网络的科学理解仍然是一个悬而未决的智力奋进。这项工作的一部分是在这个项目中追求的基本水平上的无线通信网络的理解。该研究制定了优化问题，在各种设置中的无线网络模型，并将前者的属性转化为后者的特性。为了做到这一点，研究人员依赖于这样一个事实，即随机性，以衰落的形式，产生看似更复杂的问题，但具有更易于处理的结构。研究这种更丰富的结构以：（i）确定无线网络的架构特性。(ii)设计算法来为不同类型的物理层找到最佳操作点。(iii)制定学习衰落分布的策略。(iv)考虑与获取信道状态信息相关的权衡。教育议程围绕着兴奋，挑战和纪律差距。兴奋差距是关于人们对科学和技术的兴奋与缺乏兴趣追求科学和技术的职业。挑战差距指的是降低课程所涵盖材料复杂性的持续趋势。学科差距指的是提供给学生的条块分割的经验和学科之间日益模糊的分离的现实。该教育计划通过开设关于随机过程的本科课程和关于无线网络优化设计的研究生课程，为缩小这些差距做出了贡献。这两门课程的设计都具有挑战性，令人兴奋和多学科。

The last decades of the 20th century witnessed the emergence of networks that have become ever more pervasive and important. At the start of the 21st century developing a scientific understanding of networks remains an unresolved intellectual endeavor. Part of this effort is the understanding of wireless communication networks on a fundamental level pursued in this project. The research formulates optimization problems that model wireless networks in a variety of settings and translates properties of the former into characteristics of the latter. For doing so, the investigators rely on the fact that randomness, in the form of fading, yields seemingly more complex problems that nonetheless have a more tractable structure. This richer structure is studied to: (i) Determine architectural properties of wireless networks. (ii) Design algorithms to find optimal operating points for different types of physical layers. (iii) Develop strategies to learn fading distributions. (iv) Consider tradeoffs associated with acquisition of channel state information.The education agenda revolves around the excitement, challenge and discipline gaps. The excitement gap is about the excitement people feels about science and technology versus the lack of interest to pursue careers in science and technology. The challenge gap refers to the ongoing trend to reduce the complexity of material covered in courses. The discipline gap alludes to the compartmental experience offered to students and the reality of an increasingly hazy separation between disciplines. The education plan contributes to the closing of these gaps through the development of an undergraduate level course on stochastic processes and a graduate level course on optimal design of wireless networks. Both of these courses are designed to be challenging, exciting and multidisciplinary.