CIF: Medium: Collaborative Research: Interference-Aware Cooperation via Structured Codes: Creating an Empirical Cycle

无线通信的经典方法是通过最大化信号强度和最小化用户之间的干扰来隔离通信链路。这一简单的理念得到了丰富的理论基础的支持，这些理论基础激发了强大的编码技术和协议，这些技术和协议位于现代无线系统的核心。然而，这些系统最近成了它们自身成功的牺牲品，因为无线设备不断增长的密度和数据要求导致了干扰激增。幸运的是，一项新兴的工作表明，干扰现象实际上可能代表着提高下一代无线系统的频谱和能源效率的一个尚未开发的机会。虽然在文献中已经提出了许多干扰感知通信策略，但承诺的收益大多局限于理论领域。该项目的目标是创建实用的干扰感知无线协议，使其在吞吐量、能源效率和可靠性方面接近理论预测的性能。该项目被组织成三个互补的推动力，包括理论、算法和实践。第一个推力研究基于格子的星座和用于计算转发策略的低复杂度代码，该策略使接收器能够译码发送的码字的线性组合。计算转发又可用作实现干扰感知协议的构建块，例如物理层网络编码和多用户MIMO(多输入多输出)系统。第二个目标是在一个三节点的WARP(无线开放接入研究平台)试验台上实现这些协议。将使用一系列精心设计的实验来比较干扰感知策略在考虑管理成本的情况下的性能。第三个推力利用从这些实验中收集的数据来修改信道模型，以捕获影响干扰感知策略性能的关键特征，例如异步和信道波动。这些模型将被用来重温干扰感知策略的理论基础，并根据实际遇到的信道进行调整。该项目有几项推广工作，包括与WARP试验台相关的本科生研究经验，以及一个培训模块和视频的公共存储库。

The classical approach to wireless communication is to isolate communication links by maximizing signal strength and minimizing interference between users. This simple philosophy is supported by a rich theoretical foundation which has inspired powerful coding techniques and protocols that lie at the heart of modern wireless systems. However, these systems have recently become victims of their own success as the rising density and data requirements of wireless devices have led to a surge in interference. Fortunately, an emerging body of work indicates that the phenomenon of interference may in fact represent an untapped opportunity for increasing the spectral and energy efficiency of next-generation wireless systems. Although many interference-aware communication strategies have been proposed in the literature, the promised gains have been mostly limited to the theoretical realm. The objective of this project is to create practical interference-aware wireless protocols that can operate near the performance predicted by theoretical bounds in terms of throughput, energy efficiency, and reliability. The project is organized into three complementary thrusts that encompass theory, algorithms, and practice. The first thrust investigates lattice-based constellations and low-complexity codes for the compute-and-forward strategy, which enables receivers to decode linear combinations of transmitted codewords. Compute-and-forward can in turn be used as a building block for realizing interference-aware protocols such as physical-layer network coding and multiple-user MIMO (multi-input-uulti-output) systems. The second thrust aims to implement these protocols on a three-node WARP (Wireless Open-Access Research Platform) testbed. A series of carefully designed experiments will be used to compare the performance of interference-aware strategies while accounting for overhead costs. The third thrust leverages the data collected from these experiments to revise channel models to capture key features that impact the performance of interference-aware strategies such as asynchronism and channel fluctuations. These models will be used to revisit the theoretical foundations of interference-aware strategies and tailor them to the channels encountered in practice. This project features several outreach efforts including undergraduate research experiences connected to the WARP testbed and a public repository of training modules and videos.