MRI: Acquisition of Omnipercipient Chamber for Gathering Ground Truth and Enabling Research on Smart and Connected Things

该项目支持购置一个全息室(OmniC)，其所有侧面都安装了各种天线和传感器，以收集在其内部进行的实验的地面真相(即，由直接观察提供的信息，而不是间接推理提供的信息)。该仪器支持无线网络、治疗和康复护理、机器人和计算机视觉、网络物理系统以及增强和虚拟现实等多个领域的研究。OmniC满足了许多研究人员的需求，降低了研究的成本和工作量，促进了跨学科合作，从而提高了科学进步的速度和准确性。在OmniC内部进行的实验产生的标记地面真实数据将被广泛传播，以帮助全球研究界。该项目还将在女性调查人员和当地HBCU的帮助下，让妇女、少数群体和本科生参与研究，从而扩大参与范围。除了将研究成果吸收到研究生和本科生的课程中，该项目还将与南卡罗来纳大学的外展活动协调，向更广泛的受众展示研究进展。该工具的核心好处是它捕捉到了跨时间、空间和频率域一致观察到的现象。OmniC支持的研究活动包括：i)利用信道稀疏性设计下一代毫米波和大规模MIMO无线网络，以实现高吞吐量和可靠性；ii)设计可在从微波到毫米波的广泛频谱上运行的可重新配置的天线；iii)表征毫米波设备的热耗散，并开发用于自适应冷却的天线调度方案；iv)利用无线信号反射和地板振动来评估患者和老年人的行动障碍；v)在恶劣天气和通信限制下协调自主水面车辆和自主飞行器；vi)通过建立和训练深度学习模型，跟踪受试者在多个视频中的移动和姿势，并识别他们的情绪；Vii)利用声音和无线信号传播速度的差异，利用物联网继电器消除噪声；viii)通过快速波束对准协议，支持毫米波网络上的超低延迟虚拟和增强现实应用。总体而言，该工具利用了跨学科的各种研究小组在推进智能和互联事物研究方面的共同需求和协同作用。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。

This project supports the acquisition of an omnipercipient chamber (OmniC), with all its sides mounted with a variety of antennas and sensors, for gathering the ground truth (i.e., the information provided by direct observation as opposed to indirect inference) on experiments conducted inside it. This instrument enables the research in diverse areas such as wireless networking, therapeutic and rehabilitation care, robotics and computer vision, cyber physical systems, and augmented and virtual reality. OmniC addresses the needs of many researchers, reduces the cost and effort of pursuing research, furthers inter-disciplinary collaborations, and consequently improves the speed and accuracy of scientific advancement. The labeled ground truth data generated from the experiments conducted inside OmniC would be widely disseminated to help the global research community. This project will also broaden the participation by involving women, minorities, and undergraduates in research, with the help of women investigators and local HBCUs. In addition to assimilating the research results into graduate and undergraduate level courses, this project will showcase the research advances to a wider audience in coordination with the University of South Carolina's outreach activities.The core benefit of this instrument is that it captures the phenomenon being observed coherently across the time, space, and frequency domains. The research activities enabled by OmniC include: i) Devising next-generation mmWave and massive MIMO wireless networks for high throughput and reliability by utilizing channel sparsity; ii) Designing reconfigurable antennas that operate over a broad spectrum from microwave to mmWave; iii) Characterizing thermal dissipation of mmWave devices and developing antenna scheduling schemes for adaptive cooling; iv) Assessing mobility impairments of patients and elderly leveraging the wireless signal reflections and floor vibrations for gait measurement; v) Coordinating autonomous surface vehicles and autonomous aerial vehicles during takeoff and landing under inclement weather and communication constraints; vi) Tracking the movements and poses of subjects across multiple videos and recognizing their emotions by building and training deep learning models; vii) Canceling acoustic noise with IoT relays exploiting the difference in propagation speeds of sound and wireless signals; viii) Supporting ultra-low latency virtual and augmented reality applications over mmWave networks through fast beam alignment protocols. Overall, this instrument taps the common needs and synergy between a variety of research groups across disciplines in advancing research on smart and connected things.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.