WiFiUS: Social Structure for Cooperative Mobile Networking

为满足快速增长的移动数据流量需求，世界各国监管机构正在积极制定动态频谱接入的政策法规，使未充分利用频谱的认知设备和授权频谱用户相互受益。移动流量爆炸式增长的主要原因之一是移动社交应用的快速扩散。一个关键的观察是，由于移动网络的设计和部署是为了满足人类的社交需求，人们在社交领域的联系和行为决定了他们访问移动服务的方式。有了这一见解，该项目倡导一种社会意识方法，通过利用移动用户之间的社会结构，实现共享频谱接入、合作频谱感知和智能设备对设备（D2D）通信。移动设备之间这种基于社会信任的合作能够实现自组织网络，并有可能实现频谱效率的大幅提高，并导致网络容量的显著增加。本项目将理论研究与实际应用相结合，旨在将社会元素融入到协同移动网络的设计中，从而加速未来移动网络的演进。在利用社会结构实现协同移动网络的共同主题下，本项目分为四个协调良好的推进方向：1)推进方向一：通过探索二次用户的集体智慧，以社会推荐为辅助的动态频谱接入，实现分布式频谱共享；2)推力II研究社会增强的D2D通信；3) Thrust III设计并分析了二级用户之间的协作协议；4)推力IV研究移动网络中的社会辅助信息传播。拟议的研究有望通过利用移动用户之间的社会结构，实现从传统方法到社会意识方法的范式转变，从而实现共享频谱接入、合作频谱感知和智能设备对设备（D2D）通信。更广泛的影响还包括教育因素，例如通过向妇女和代表性不足的学生提供研究机会来促进多样性。

To meet the rapidly growing demand of mobile data traffic, regulatory agencies around the world are actively working on policies and regulations for dynamic spectrum access that are mutually beneficial to the cognitive devices and the licensed spectrum users of the under-utilized spectrum. One of the primary contributors to the explosive mobile traffic growth is the rapid proliferation of mobile social applications. One key observation is that, since mobile networks are designed and deployed to meet the social needs of humans, connections and behaviors of people in the social domain shape the ways in which they access mobile services. With this insight, this project advocates a social-aware approach to enable shared spectrum access, cooperative spectrum sensing and intelligent device-to-device (D2D) communications, by leveraging the social structure among mobile users. Such social trust-based cooperation among mobile devices enables self-organizing networking, and has the potential to achieve substantial gains in spectral efficiency and lead to significant increases in network capacity. By combining theoretical studies with practical applications, this project aims to integrate social elements into the design of cooperative mobile networks, thereby accelerating the evolution of future mobile networks.Under the common theme of exploiting the social structure for cooperative mobile networking, this project is organized into four well-coordinated thrusts: 1) Thrust I focuses on social recommendation-aided dynamic spectrum access by exploring the collective wisdom of secondary users for distributed spectrum sharing; 2) Thrust II investigates social-enhanced D2D communications; 3) Thrust III designs and analyzes collaboration protocols among secondary users; 4) Thrust IV studies social assisted information dissemination in mobile networks. The proposed research is expected to enable a paradigm shift from traditional approaches to social-aware approaches to enable shared spectrum access, cooperative spectrum sensing and intelligent device-to-device (D2D) communications, via exploiting the social structure among mobile users. The broader impacts also include educational elements, such as promoting diversity by providing research opportunities to woman and underrepresented students.