NetS-ProWiN: An Enabling Technology for Wireless Networks - The VT Cognitive Engine

Virginia Polytechnic Institute And State University, Blacksburg VA

Investigators

Abstract

This project develops the enabling technology for wireless networks consisting of intelligent nodes sharing a distributed knowledge base and capable of both individual and collective reasoning and learning. The nodes are cognitive radios: intelligent machines that can determine the best way to operate in a given situation and configure themselves accordingly. Cognitive radios consist of a software defined radio (one that uses digital circuitry rather than analog components to generate, transmit, receive, and process radio frequency waveforms) and a cognitive engine, the brain that reads the radio's "meters" and turns the radio's "knobs" to obtain a desired outcome. Like living creatures, cognitive radios are aware of their surroundings, their own and their peers' capabilities, and the governing social constraints. Their actions arise from a rational process that predicts probable consequences and remembers past successes and failures. The project's approach to cognitive networking is based on a tiered system of modeling, learning, action, and feedback. It offers the first large scale tests of cognition in a well-defined network environment, providing quantitative answers to very practical questions like "Can cognitive techniques allow Wi-Fi like services in locally unoccupied TV channels?" Important research outcomes will include full implementation of a cognitive engine that can make any wireless network cognitive, an implementation of that engine for the widely available and low cost GNU Radio (a software defined radio developed for such experiments), and a quantitative assessment of the performance advantages of cognitive wireless networks.