Collaborative Research: SWIFT: LARGE: MAC-on-MAC: A Spectrum Orchestrating Control Plane for Coexisting Wireless Systems

具有不同无线电接入技术（RAT）的无线系统在无线电频谱的空间中变得紧密地封装。然而，这些系统的载波频率和信道带宽在频谱域上是完全不同的，例如，在900 MHz、2.4/5 GHz和60 GHz（毫米波）频段工作的IEEE 802.11系列，跨越6-100 GHz的3GPP 5G系列等。因此，长期以来被认定为稀缺资源的无线电频谱将比以往更加拥挤和多样化。快速有效的频谱共享需要无线设备的增强能力和增加智能，从物理层的创新发射机和接收机技术，到跨物理层和MAC层的多频带频谱感测;从为每个接入请求映射频谱切片，到媒体访问控制（MAC）协议的根本修改。总而言之，需要支持在不同频带上运行不同通信标准的大量异构设备，以在如此庞大、动态和完全不同的系统中实现有效的频谱和能量利用。本项目通过从发射机和接收机电路开发跨层设计的潜力，通过创新的MAC-on-MAC频谱控制平面，该项目有四个主要目标：㈠设计创新的发射器和接收器技术，用于高能效的多波段频谱监测，方法是使用定制的单芯片超宽带（1-8 GHz）生物启发频谱传感器，以创建包括6 GHz以下和新兴毫米波段的多波段传感解决方案;（ii）通过利用低成本的矩阵完成来从所提出的多频带频谱感测电路获取具有有限数量的测量的完整频谱占用信息的方法，（iii）通过对频谱流RAT域进行建模、找到未占用频谱切片的集合、从相邻SAP控制实体中挑选出多个推荐来获得将数据流映射到频谱滑移范围的路径的排序排名的算法;（iv）为传统用户帧和用于系统级性能评估的MAC上MAC控制器处理的帧两者创建MAC-Flow，其是能够处理来自上层和下层两者的联网需求的基于流的网络协议。在频谱检测、感知、数据流映射和MAC协议实施方面的全面系统级集成对于改善共存无线系统中的频谱利用率和用户体验至关重要。该奖项反映了NSF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。

Wireless systems with different radio access technologies (RATs) are becoming packed tightly in the space of radio spectrum. The carrier frequency and channel bandwidth of these systems, however, are drastically different across the spectrum domain, e.g., the IEEE 802.11 family that operates at 900 MHz, 2.4/5 GHz, and 60 GHz (mm-wave) bands, the 3GPP 5G family that spans 6-100 GHz, and more. Therefore, radio spectrum, which has long been identified as a scarce resource, will be more crowded and diversified than ever. Swift and effective spectrum sharing requires enhanced capability and increased intelligence at the wireless devices, from innovative transmitter and receiver technologies at the physical layer, to multi-band spectrum sensing across physical and MAC layer; from mapping spectrum slices for each access request, to radical modification of medium access control (MAC) protocols. Altogether, there is a need to support a myriad of heterogeneous devices that run diverse communication standards over different frequency bands to achieve efficient spectrum and energy utilization in such huge, dynamic and disparate systems.This project mitigates the incoherent and disassociated frequency bands of the multi-RAT coexisting environments by exploiting the potential of cross-layer design from the circuits of transmitter and receiver, to the MAC layer with an innovative MAC-on-MAC spectrum control plane. This project has four major thrusts: (i) design of innovative transmitter and receiver techniques for energy-efficient multi-band spectrum monitoring, by using custom single-chip ultra-broadband (1-8 GHz) bio-inspired spectrum sensors to create a multi-band sensing solution that includes both sub-6 GHz and emerging mm-wave bands; (ii) methods to acquire complete spectrum occupancy information with a limited number of measurements from the proposed multi-band spectrum sensing circuits by exploiting matrix completion for low-cost, accurate and scalable monitoring through a learning-based sequential scheme; (iii) algorithms of obtaining a sorted ranking of paths that map a data flow to a range of spectrum slips by modeling spectrum-flow-RAT domains, finding the set of unoccupied spectrum slices, sorting out multiple recommendations from neighboring SAP control entities; (iv) creating MAC-Flow, a flow based network protocol that is capable of handling networking demands from both upper and lower layer, for both traditional user frames and for MAC-on-MAC controller processed frames for system-level performance evaluation. A holistic system-level integration of advances in spectrum detection, sensing, mapping with data flows, and implementation of MAC protocols is critical to improving spectrum utilization and user experience in coexisting wireless systems.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.