CIF: Small: Timing Optimization Over Random Network Asynchrony - Theory And Distributed Algorithms

推动21世纪技术革命的一个关键力量是不断加速部署功能更强大但物理尺寸更小的计算/传感设备，这些设备通过新一代无线网络不断交互连接。人们有兴趣支持每平方公里高达一百万个设备的设备密度，一旦实现，将实现指数级的许多创新，进一步改变现代社会的面貌。支持这种大规模机器类型通信的巨大挑战是，现代无线网络虽然提供高吞吐量和广泛覆盖，但不可避免地容易受到随机延迟的影响。这种延迟导致了一种称为“网络延迟”的现象，即设备发送的任何消息在实际到达其预期目的地时总是在某种随机程度上过时。因此，任何两个节点关于网络信息的本地视图总是“不同步”，关键的挑战是每个节点如何能够最佳地与其他节点进行通信和协作，尽管它们的本地视图是异步的。本项目旨在研究在网络安全环境下的最佳网络协作策略，其研究结果可能会为急需的下一代机器类型通信协议带来高性能的设计范例，从而大幅提高自动驾驶汽车、传感器网络和许多其他物联网设备的通信效率。该项目研究传感器和控制器以及整个网络如何在时间上有噪声的信息环路上进行最佳协作，特别是如何在随机网络上进行（传输）定时优化。将研究三个主要方面。在推力1，一个新的固定点方程框架结晶现有的理论发展将被探索，开辟新的场地，最佳调度表征和数值评估。在推力2中，将开发新的分布式算法和数据新鲜度控制器，以最佳地适应任何未知的延迟分布。在第三阶段中，要综合考虑以双稳态为中心的设计、无双稳态设计和混合设计。并且将研究量化传输层设计选择对数据新鲜度控制的影响。这些努力的结果将导致新的理论表征，分布式算法，并在互联网协议的早期基于TCP的流量控制算法的开发类似的方式自主机器类型的通信协议设计。这个奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并已被认为是值得通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响力审查标准进行评估的支持。

A key force driving technology revolutions in the 21st century is the ever accelerating deployment of more powerful but physically smaller computing/sensing devices that are constantly and interactively connected through newer-generation wireless networks. There is interest in supporting device densities of up to one million devices per square kilometer, which, once achieved, would enable exponentially many innovations that further transform the landscape of modern society. A grand challenge of supporting this massive scale of machine-type communication is that modern wireless networks, while offering high throughput and broad coverage, are inevitably susceptible to random delay. This delay results in a phenomenon called "network asynchrony," for which any message sent by a device is always outdated to some random degree when it actually arrives at its intended destination. As such, the local views of any two nodes regarding network information are always "out-of-sync," and the key challenge is how each individual node can optimally communicate and collaborate with others despite their asynchronous local views. This project investigates the optimal network collaboration policies under network asynchrony, with results potentially leading to a high-performance design paradigm for the much-needed next-generation machine-type communication protocols, substantially improving the communication efficiency of autonomous vehicles, sensor networks, and many other Internet-of-Things devices.Motivated by the recent discovery of data freshness control, this projects studies how sensors and controllers, and the entire network in general, can optimally collaborate over a temporally noisy information loop, and particularly how to perform (transmission) timing optimization over random network asynchrony. Three major thrusts will be investigated. In thrust 1, a new fixed-point equation framework crystallizing the existing theoretic developments will be explored, opening up new venues for optimal scheduling characterization and numerical evaluation. In thrust 2, new distributed algorithms and data-freshness-control schedulers that optimally adapt to any unknown delay distribution will be developed. In Thrust 3, joint consideration of acknowledgement-centric, acknowledgement-free, and hybrid designs. and quantifying the impact of transport-layer design choices on data freshness control will be investigated. The results of these thrusts will lead to new theoretical characterizations, distributed algorithms, and protocol designs for autonomous machine-type communications in a way similar to the development of TCP-based flow-control algorithms in the early days of Internet protocols.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.