ECCS-EPSRC: Towards Quantum-assisted Reconfigurable Indoor Wireless Environments

室内场景已经成为最拥挤、竞争最激烈的无线环境之一。随着弹性万物互联（IoE）和第四次工业革命（工业4.0）基础设施的需求，预计将有数千台设备在受限的室内环境中无线连接，相互干扰并争夺有限的电磁频谱。不断增长的数据流量需求、有限的空间和拥挤的频谱共同构成了重大的技术挑战和创新机遇。本课题的研究目标是探索新的基本通信模型和方案，动态规划和定制室内无线传播环境，以增强无线通信。这一目标是通过整合波混沌动力学的物理、随机矩阵理论的数学、可重构电磁表面的工程和量子硬件的计算能力来实现的。这一成功将开辟新的途径，从补偿到利用混乱和随机性，到更节能和智能的室内无线通信。该研究有可能支持超5g /6G室内无线基础设施的各种非常理想的功能，例如在所需位置的最大信号沉积，节能和带宽高效的室内无线通信，准确可靠的室内定位。虽然该项目的重点是电动力学，但该研究开发的方法可以应用于许多其他相关领域，包括声学、量子介观输运、复杂介质中的成像和无序介质中的光散射。室内无线与室外无线在性质上是不同的。无线设备和无线电环境之间固有的复杂、动态交互呈现出其独特的挑战。该项目将研究一个面向物理的、数学上易于处理的计算框架，该框架可以实现故意扰动的统计设计和优化，以动态编程和定制室内无线传播环境。微扰力是由新兴的可重构智能表面（RIS）技术实现的。优化过程对在规定扰动下可达到的物理自由度进行操作。为了实现适应动态无线环境的超快速优化，本研究将利用量子绝热优化器的力量来克服计算复杂性。本研究包括三个部分：(1)建立复杂密闭室内环境下波动物理统计分析的严格数学模型；(2)利用RIS技术对波混沌进行配置与控制；(3)基于量子的RIS配置超快速大规模优化。该提案的愿景是，将复杂系统的物理学与量子计算融合在一起，将改变RIS设备大型网络的建模和设计，从而将室内无线电环境转变为未来无线网络的资源。该项目是通过美国国家科学基金会工程- UKRI工程与物理科学研究委员会牵头机构机会（ENG-EPSRC）提交的，该机构是美国国家科学基金会与英国研究与创新（UKRI）工程与物理科学研究委员会（EPSRC）之间的合作伙伴关系。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，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。

Indoor scenario has emerged as one of the most congested, contested, and competitive wireless environments. With the need of resilient Internet of Everything (IoE) and Fourth Industrial Revolution (Industry 4.0) infrastructures, thousands of devices are expected to be connected wirelessly within a confined indoor environment, interfering with each other and contending for limited electromagnetic spectrum. The combination of growing demand for data traffic, confined space, and congested spectrum creates a major technical challenge and opportunities for innovation. The research objective of this project is to investigate new fundamental communication models and schemes, which dynamically program and customize indoor wireless propagation environments for enhanced wireless communications. This objective is attained by integrating the physics of wave-chaotic dynamics, the mathematics of random matrix theory, the engineering of reconfigurable electromagnetic surfaces, and the computing power of quantum hardware. The success will open new pathways from compensation to exploitation of chaos and randomness towards more energy-efficient and intelligent indoor wireless communications. The research has the potential to support a variety of highly desirable functionalities for beyond-5G/6G indoor wireless infrastructure, such as maximum signal deposition at desired locations, energy and bandwidth efficient indoor wireless communications, accurate and reliable indoor positioning. While the project is focused on electrodynamics, the methodology developed by this research can be applied to many other related fields including acoustics, quantum mesoscopic transport, imaging in complex media, and light scattering in disordered media. Indoor wireless is qualitatively different than outdoor wireless. The inherently complex, dynamic interaction between wireless devices and radio environment presents its own unique challenges. This project will investigate a physics-oriented, mathematically tractable computational framework that can enable statistical design and optimization of deliberate perturbations to dynamically program and customize indoor wireless propagation environments. The perturbative force is realized by the emerging reconfigurable intelligent surfaces (RIS) technology. The optimization procedure operates on the physical degrees of freedom that are accessible in the prescribed perturbation. To enable an ultra-fast optimization adapting to dynamic wireless environments, the research will leverage the power of quantum adiabatic optimizer to overcome the computational complexity. The proposed research consists of three components: (1) a rigorous mathematical model for the statistical analysis of wave physics in complex confined indoor environment; (2) the configuration and control of wave chaos using the RIS technology; (3) quantum-enabled, ultra-fast large-scale optimization of RIS configuration. The proposal’s vision is that the physics of complex systems fused with quantum computing will constitute a game changer for the modeling and design of large network of RIS devices cooperating to transform indoor radio environments into a resource for future wireless networks.This project was submitted through the NSF Engineering - UKRI Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council Lead Agency Opportunity (ENG-EPSRC), a collaborative partnership between the National Science Foundation and the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) of United Kingdom Research and Innovation (UKRI).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.