CAREER: Towards a Marketplace of Networked Services for the Next Billion Devices

最近，车辆和传感器等大量设备既具备了互联网连接能力，又具备了强大的计算能力。如今许多网络研究的目标是利用这些设备来支持新的、跨设备的用户应用。例如，外部传感器可以使用蜂窝和Wi-Fi网络向一组运行增强现实应用程序的智能手机发送测量数据；然后，这些智能手机可以合作分析传感器数据，并向用户显示正确的信息。然而，只有在设备所有者同意彼此合作的情况下，应用程序才能使用多个设备。这项工作的目标是通过开发激励这种合作的机制来实现跨设备应用。该项目的调查结果将被纳入一项教育计划，该计划强调用户和应用需求在推动基于互联网的技术发展中的作用。该计划包括开发新的本科生和研究生课程，以及为初中生和高中生开设短期讲习班课程，鼓励女孩进入工程领域。研究人员将把这些发现纳入针对普通公众的在线博客文章中，并将寻求行业合作和与跨学科研究社区的接触。拟议的工作有两个主要目标：(1)为设备推导出以最佳方式买卖带宽和计算资源的算法，(2)根据参与设备的收益来分析由此产生的市场结果。它将被分为三个研究推动力，每个研究推力都解决了这两个目标。首先，考虑一种简单的市场类型，其中设备既可以是用户，也可以是提供商。用户设备决定是否订阅来自一个或多个提供商设备的带宽或计算资源。其次，考虑了一个更动态的市场，在这个市场中，用户可以根据他们随着时间的推移的特定需求，动态地从提供商那里协商带宽和计算资源。第三个研究重点建立在前两个重点的用户和提供商战略的基础上，并考虑可以动态决定是否充当用户和提供商的设备，以便从参与带宽和计算资源市场中获得最大好处。每一项研究都将导致新的模型、定理和决策算法，这些模型、定理和决策算法将考虑用户带宽和计算资源需求的动态和相互依赖关系。小规模人体主体实验和大型虚拟试验台实验将用于验证理论工作。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Multitudes of devices like vehicles and sensors have recently acquired both Internet connectivity and significant computing power. Much networking research today aims to harness these devices to enable new, cross-device user applications. For instance, external sensors may use cellular and Wi-Fi networks to send measurements to a group of smartphones running augmented reality applications; these smartphones can then work together to analyze the sensor data and display the right information to their users. However, applications can only make use of multiple devices if the device owners agree to cooperate with each other. The goal of this work is to enable cross-device applications by developing mechanisms that incentivize such cooperation. The findings from this project will be integrated into an education plan that emphasizes the role of user and application needs in shaping the evolution of Internet-based technologies. This plan includes developing new undergraduate and graduate courses and short workshop courses for middle and high school students that encourage girls to enter engineering fields. The researcher will incorporate the findings in online blog posts aimed at the general public, and will pursue industry collaborations and outreach to interdisciplinary research communities.The proposed work has two main objectives: (1) to derive algorithms for devices to optimally buy and sell bandwidth and computing resources, and (2) to analytically characterize the resulting marketplace outcomes in terms of the benefit to participating devices. It will be divided into three research thrusts that each address both objectives. First, a simple type of marketplace is considered, in which devices can be either users or providers. User devices decide whether to subscribe to bandwidth or computing resources from one or more provider devices. Second, a more dynamic marketplace is considered, in which users can dynamically negotiate for bandwidth and computing resources from providers, depending on their specific needs over time. The third research thrust builds on the user and provider strategies from the first two thrusts, and considers devices that can dynamically decide whether to act as users and providers, so as to maximize their benefits from participating in bandwidth and computing resource marketplaces. Each research thrust will result in new models, theorems, and decision algorithms that account for the dynamics and inter-dependencies of users' bandwidth and computing resource needs. Small-scale human subject experiments and large-scale virtual test-bed experiments will be used to validate the theoretical work.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.