CAREER: Towards Broadband and UAV-Assisted Heterogeneous Networks for Public Safety Communications

在发生火灾、恐怖袭击或自然灾害等事件时，公共安全通信（PSC）可以帮助拯救生命、财产和国家基础设施。直到最近，这种通信主要是由窄带无线技术处理的。然而，这些技术无法满足公共安全需求，例如需要视频流功能的深度态势感知功能。该研究提出在一个新颖的变革性框架内使用无人机（uav）和蜂窝技术，这将成为下一代PSC系统的支柱。要从拟议的架构中获益，需要解决几个技术挑战，包括：1)可能损坏的网络基础设施，如在地震之后，造成严重的连接问题；2)空中与地面基站以及用户设备之间动态变化的干扰，阻碍宽带吞吐量；3)无缝连接问题，表现为切换失败，动态干扰和基础设施移动性加剧了这一问题。为了应对这些挑战，拟议的研究将制定一个跨学科的研究议程，将宽带无线网络、无人机通信、软件定义无线电、强化学习和随机几何结合到一个集成的协同框架中。该项目将引入一些涉及自组织干扰和移动性管理技术的创新，以实现PSC网络无处不在的宽带连接。将开发一个综合的硬件/软件PSC测试平台，配备强大的无人机和无线电设备，以验证、评估和改进提出的解决方案。理论和实验结果将通过在关键任务的PSC场景中实现实时无线多媒体和深度态势感知能力，在PSC系统中开辟新的领域。密切的工业合作将加强提议的测试平台、原型设计和教育工作，并允许在工业实验室培训本科生/研究生。对当地高中的拓展活动将吸引代表性不足的少数民族，特别是西班牙裔，进入STEM领域和无线网络领域。

Public safety communication (PSC) can help save lives, property, and national infrastructure in case of incidents such as fires, terrorist attacks or natural disasters. Until recently, such communication has been mostly handled by wireless technologies operating in narrow spectrum bands. However, such technologies fall short of addressing public safety requirements, such as deep situational awareness features that necessitate video streaming capabilities. This research proposes the use of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) along with cellular technologies within a novel and transformative framework that will serve as the pillar of next generation PSC systems. Reaping the benefits of the proposed architecture requires addressing several technical challenges including: 1) potentially damaged network infrastructure, as in the aftermath of an earthquake, causing severe connectivity problems; 2) dynamically varying interference between aerial and ground base stations as well as user equipment, hindering broadband throughput; 3) seamless connectivity problems, in the form of handover failures, exacerbated by dynamic interference and infrastructure mobility. For addressing these challenges, the proposed research will lay down an interdisciplinary research agenda that combines broadband wireless networks, UAV communications, software defined radios, reinforcement learning, and stochastic geometry, into an integrated and synergistic framework. The project will introduce several innovations that involve self organizing interference and mobility management techniques to achieve ubiquitous broadband connectivity for PSC networks. A comprehensive hardware/software PSC testbed with powerful UAV and radio equipment will be developed to validate, evaluate, and improve the proposed solutions. The theoretical and experimental outcomes will break new ground in PSC systems by enabling real-time wireless multimedia and deep situational awareness capabilities in mission-critical PSC scenarios. Close industrial collaboration will reinforce the proposed testbed, prototyping, and educational efforts, and allow training of undergraduate/graduate students in industrial labs. Outreach activities to local high-schools will attract underrepresented minorities, particularly Hispanics, into STEM areas and the field of wireless networks.