NeTS: Collaborative Research: Assessing the Feasibility of Programming the Ambient Wireless Environment

无线连接已成为日常生活中不可或缺的工具。无线基础设施远远不止提供基本的通信，还包括许多物联网(IoT)生态系统的控制和管理功能的主干，从智能家居解决方案到自动驾驶汽车。因此，为了确保这样的关键基础设施的效率和可靠性，人们做出了无数的努力。在此背景下，该项目遵循相同的总体主题，即改善无线基础设施，实现更快和无缝的连接。从科学的角度来看，该项目寻求通过将重点从数据网络本身转移到环境环境来从根本上改变无线网络设计的技术方法的可行性。从行业角度来看，该项目为技术的贡献开辟了道路，既可以改善蜂窝网络链路质量，又可以在干扰限制其有效性的密集城市部署中实现Wi-Fi技术的共存。从教育的角度来看，该项目有可能改变学术界向本科生和研究生教授无线通信和无线信道的方式。传统的优化无线网络的方法围绕无线端点，即发射器和接收器，并将无线信道作为硬约束，调用多种解决方案来充分利用该信道。这个项目将把重点放在优化周围无线环境是否可行上。该项目不会改变终端的行为方式，而是探索改变无线链路上感知到的信道的方法，为无线通信创造更有利的条件。具体地说，该团队将探索如何使用小型无线元素来检测无线环境，以影响无线接收器从无线发送器测量的无线信道的变化。然后，将包括这些元件的衬底与控制基础设施相结合，该控制基础设施实时测量无线发送器和接收器之间的通道，并启动元件衬底以实现通道变化。作为概念的证明，该团队将探索使用这种设计来改善单独的链接以及减少并行链接之间的干扰。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。

Wireless connectivity has become an indispensable utility in everyday life. Far beyond providing basic communications, wireless infrastructure comprises the backbone of the control and management functions of many Internet of Things (IoT) ecosystems, ranging from smart home solutions to autonomous vehicles. Therefore, countless efforts have been made to ensure the efficiency and reliability of such critical infrastructure. Against this backdrop, this project follows the same overarching theme of improving wireless infrastructure towards faster and seamless connectivity. From a scientific perspective, the project seeks to investigate the feasibility of fundamentally transforming the technical approach to wireless network design by shifting the focus from the data networks themselves to the ambient environment. From an industrial perspective, the project opens the way for the contribution of techniques to both improve cellular network link quality and enable co-existence of Wi-Fi technologies in dense urban deployments, where interference limits their effectiveness. From an educational perspective, the project has the potential to change the way academia teaches the topic of wireless communications and the wireless channel to undergraduate students and graduate students alike.The traditional approach to optimizing wireless networks revolves around the wireless endpoints, i.e., the transmitters and the receivers, and takes the wireless channel as a hard constraint, invoking a multitude of solutions to fully utilize that channel. This project will instead focus on whether it is feasible to optimize the ambient wireless environment. Instead of changing the ways in which endpoints behave, the project will explore ways of changing the perceived channel along the wireless link to create more favorable conditions for wireless communication. Specifically, the team will explore how to instrument the wireless environment with small wireless elements to effect changes in the wireless channel that a wireless receiver measures from a wireless sender. A substrate comprising these elements is then combined with a control infrastructure that measures the channels between wireless senders and receivers in real time, and actuates the element substrate in order to effect channel variations. As a proof of concept, the team will explore using this design to improve individual links as well as reduce interference between concurrent links.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.