EAGER: Towards an Open Source Backpressure Protocol Stack for Wireless Networks

University Of Southern California, Los Angeles CA

Investigators

Abstract

While it has been shown theoretically that stochastic network optimization techniques utilizing queue backpressure can result in high performance cross-layer protocols, there has been limited prior work on translating them into practice. In this exploratory research project, we develop and demonstrate a novel cross-layer backpressure protocol stack for wireless sensor networks, building on our implementation of the backpressure collection protocol (BCP). The possible gains of this highly agile approach to cross-layer wireless networking are substantial and include increased throughput even in the presence of mobility, handling of bursty external interference events with reduced losses, and reduced protocol implementation complexity. We incorporate techniques for MAC-layer backoff prioritization, transport layer utility optimization, mechanisms to handle various kinds of network dynamics, and interoperability with asynchronous low power sleep schedules. Protocol implementation code developed in the project will be released publicly as open-source. It is expected that the successful completion of this project will provide an important proof-of-concept that stochastic optimization theory-driven protocols can be successful in practice.