NeTS-NBD: Cooperative Multi-Hop Wireless Communications and Networking: Joint Design of Error Control Coding, Medium Access, and Routing

University Of Miami, Coral Gables FL

Investigators

Abstract

Cooperative Multi-Hop Wireless Communications and Networking: Joint Design of Error Control Coding, Medium Access, and Routing Award 0626695 Xiaodong Cai Multi-hop communication is instrumental in many emerging wireless networks such as ad hoc networks, sensor networks, mesh networks, etc. However, current multi-hop communication methods cannot provide satisfactory network performance in terms of throughput, latency, energy efficiency, and robustness, when the network operates in typical environments with complicated channel fading and shadowing. This is due to several major problems: 1) At the network layer, current routing algorithms do not have any mechanisms to cope with the detrimental effects of fading and shadowing inherent in wireless channels, since these routing algorithms are based upon a disk model for wireless channels that takes into account path loss, but not fading and shadowing. 2) At the data link and physical layers, current transmission schemes do not properly explore the broadcasting nature of wireless transmissions to improve link reliability. 3) The lack of a joint design across the network, medium access control (MAC), and physical layers renders it difficult to optimize network performance. This project aims to develop a framework of cross-layer cooperative communications to substantially improve the performance of multi-hop wireless communications. Specifically, the cross-layer design framework provides a unified approach across the network, MAC, and physical layers, where routing algorithms along with MAC schemes ensure node cooperation, while the novel error-control code (ECC) achieves maximum coding and diversity gain enabled by node cooperation. The communication and networking methods developed in this project are expected to significantly improve the performance of wireless networks employing multi-hop communication.