CAREER: Agile and Scalable Millimeter Wave Networks

对移动和无线数据不断增长的需求给无线网络带来了巨大的压力，并导致联邦通信委员会在毫米波频段释放了超过14千兆赫的带宽，用于许可和未经许可的使用。毫米波（mmWave）频段预计将提供每秒千兆比特（Gbps）的无线数据速率，这将成为下一代（5G）蜂窝网络和无线本地网络的核心。使用这些频段的网络还将支持虚拟和增强现实、车对车通信以及多媒体和物联网流量激增等新应用。然而，毫米波技术由于其物理特性，包括方向性、宽带和稀疏性，与现有的无线技术（如WiFi和蜂窝网络）有着根本的不同。因此，今天的毫米波系统在移动性、介质接入和控制开销方面面临着新的挑战，这些挑战阻碍了它们扩展和支持移动网络。本项目提出的研究将解决这些挑战，释放毫米波技术的潜力。该项目将为下一代通信系统设计和构建实用的、可扩展的移动毫米波网络。该项目还将把毫米波通信集成到虚拟现实（VR）和自动驾驶汽车等新应用中。拟议的研究将通过与工业界的密切合作和在顶级研究场所的出版物来传播。它还将通过设计新的本科和研究生无线课程以及参与社区外展计划，整合到教育中。该提案将实现实用、敏捷和移动的毫米波网络，并将其集成到更高层的应用中。它将通过引入新颖的跨层协议来解决上述挑战，这些协议利用毫米波网络的底层稀疏性，提供新的协议，可以实时执行波束对准、跟踪、干扰管理和调度，并且开销低，可以扩展到大型网络。拟议的研究将在三个关键重点中执行：(1)它将开发链路建立协议，该协议可以发现接入点和客户端之间的最佳一致性并跟踪客户端方向。它将开发新的媒体访问控制协议，将毫米波扩展到多链路网络。(3)通过开发联合通信和传感系统，将毫米波网络集成到VR和自动驾驶汽车等更高层应用中。该提案将在无线测试平台上设计，构建和经验测试所提出的系统。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

The ever-increasing demands for mobile and wireless data have placed a huge strain on wireless networks, and have led the Federal Communications Commission to release more than 14 GigaHerz of bandwidth for both licensed and unlicensed use in the millimeter wave frequency bands. Millimeter Wave (mmWave) bands are expected to deliver multi-Gigabit-per-second (Gbps) wireless data rates that will be central to next-generation (5G) cellular networks as well as wireless local networks. Networks using these bands will also enable new applications such as virtual and augmented reality, vehicle-to-vehicle communications, and a surge of multimedia and Internet-of-Things traffic. Millimeter wave technology, however, is fundamentally different from existing wireless technologies such as WiFi and cellular networks due to its physical properties, including directionality, wide bandwidth, and sparsity. As a result, today's mmWave systems face new challenges, in terms of mobility, medium access, and control overhead, which prevent them from scaling and supporting mobile networks. The research proposed in this project will address these challenges to unleash the potential of mmWave technologies. The project will design and build practical, scalable, mobile millimeter-wave networks for next generation communication systems. The project will also integrate mmWave communication into novel applications like virtual reality (VR) and self-driving cars. The proposed research will be disseminated through close collaboration with industry and publication in top research venues. It will also be integrated into education through the design of new undergraduate and graduate wireless classes and involvement in community outreach programs. The proposal will enable practical, agile and mobile mmWave networks and integrate them into higher layer applications. It will address the above challenges by introducing novel cross-layer protocols that exploit the underlying sparsity of mmWave networks to deliver new protocols that can perform beam alignment, tracking, interference management and scheduling in real-time and with low overhead that allows them to scale to large networks. The proposed research will be executed in three key thrusts: (1) It will develop link establishment protocols that can discover the best alignment between access points and clients and track the client's direction. (2) It will develop new medium access control protocols that will scale mmWave to multi-link networks. (3) It will integrate mmWave networks into higher layer applications like VR and self-driving cars by developing a joint communication and sensing system. The proposal will design, build and empirically test the proposed systems in wireless testbeds.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.