Energy and spectrum opportunistic relaying for sustainable wireless networks

无线服务在我们的社会中扮演着越来越重要的角色，改变着人们的生活、行业流程和社会互动。尽管它们有助于减少二氧化碳排放，例如通过远程办公和提高生产效率，但它们也会导致服务需求和经济增长的增加，导致二氧化碳排放的总体增加。为了实现到2050年在包括加拿大在内的几个国家实现净零排放的目标，减少未来移动网络的排放非常重要，未来移动网络已经占全球能源消耗的2%。在此背景下，本研究计划旨在为低排放和可持续无线网络的设计提供新的理解和指导。具体地说，本研究计划的总体目标是设计、建模和分析包含由可再生能源供电的继电器的无线网络，以减少无线网络的排放并提高其可持续性，同时满足各种应用的服务质量要求。为实现这些目标将研究的具体技术包括定向天线中继器和可重新配置的智能表面以减少传输所需的能量，以及利用不同位置的可用可再生能源、频谱和信道条件进行机会性中继器选择。该研究项目的第一个成果将是新的无线资源管理算法和媒体接入控制协议，用于收集信道和能量统计数据，选择最佳中继器并配置其参数(波束形成向量、频谱接入等)，并以最优方式传输信息以最小化网络辐射。将提出提供理论界限的最优解决方案和实时启发式算法，从而在Beyond 5G网络中实现实际实施和标准化。本研究项目的第二个成果将是网络规划方法，以优化基站和可再生能源供电的中继节点的频谱分配、部署和配置，以最大限度地提高网络的可持续性。该研究项目的第三个成果将是理论、分析和计算机模拟工具，以评估集成由可再生能源供电的中继节点的无线网络的网络排放和可持续性。因此，预计拟议的研究项目将对绿色无线网络这一重要领域做出重大研究贡献，对具有各种特性和能力的继电器的使用和影响有新的理解。这些结果将引起无线服务提供商、设备制造商、政策制定者、标准化组织和研究界的兴趣。因此，它应该有助于在未来成功部署低排放和可持续的无线网络。

Wireless services play an increasingly important role in our society transforming people's lives, industry processes, and society interactions. Although they help to reduce CO2 emissions, for example with telecommuting and increase in production efficiency, they also cause an increase in service demand and economic growth, leading to an overall increase in CO2 emissions. With an objective to reach net-zero emissions in several countries, including Canada, by 2050, it is important to reduce the emissions of future mobile networks, which already account for 2% of global energy consumption. In this context, this research program aims to provide new understanding and guidelines on the design of low emissions and sustainable wireless networks. Particularly, the general objective of this research program is to design, model and analyze wireless networks incorporating relays powered by renewable energy sources with an objective of decreasing the wireless network emissions and improving their sustainability while meeting the quality-of-service requirements of various applications. Specific techniques that will be investigated to achieve these goals include directional antenna relays and reconfigurable intelligent surfaces to reduce the required energy for transmission, and opportunistic relay selection exploiting available renewable energy, spectrum, and channel conditions in different locations. The first outcome of this research project will be novel radio resource management algorithms and medium access control protocols to collect channel and energy statistics, select the optimal relays and configure their parameters (beamforming vectors, spectrum access, etc.), and optimally transmit the information to minimize the network emissions. Both optimal solutions providing theoretical bounds and real-time heuristic algorithms leading to practical implementations and standardization in beyond 5G networks will be proposed. The second outcome of this research project will be network planning methods for the optimal spectrum allocation, deployment and configuration of base stations and relay nodes powered by renewable energy sources to maximize the network sustainability. The third outcome of this research project will be theoretical, analytical, and computer simulation tools to evaluate the network emissions and sustainability of wireless networks integrating relay nodes powered by renewable energy sources. It is therefore expected that the proposed research project will yield significant research contributions to the important area of green wireless networks with a novel understanding on the use and impact of relays with various characteristics and capabilities. Those results will be of interest to wireless service providers, equipment manufacturers, policy-makers, standardization organizations and the research community. As such, it should contribute to the successful deployment of low emission and sustainable wireless networks in the future.