NeTS: Small: Optimizing Information Freshness in Wireless Networks

Massachusetts Institute Of Technology, Cambridge MA

Investigators

Abstract

Future Internet-of-Things (IoT) applications will increasingly rely on the exchange of delay sensitive information. Application domains such as autonomous vehicles, industrial control systems, virtual reality, and sensor networks, heavily rely upon the distribution of time-critical information. Age of Information (AoI) is a recently proposed performance metric that measures the freshness of the information from the perspective of the application. AoI measures the time that elapsed from the moment that the most recently received data was generated to the present time. This project develops an AoI framework for characterizing latency in wireless networks, and mechanisms for minimizing latency; thus enabling a wide range of societal benefits including the control of critical infrastructure, mobile health care, and automated manufacturing. The goal of this project is to extend the Age-of-Information framework to the wireless network setting. In particular, this project advances the theory of AoI from the simple and abstract queueing models to realistic wireless network models, taking into account the effects of wireless interference, transmission scheduling, and multi-hop routing. The project will consider single-hop networks, such as LTE or WiFi; multi-hop networks such as sensor networks; and mobile ad-hoc networks. The goal is to understand the impact of network topology, node mobility, interference and channel reliability on AoI, and to develop network control mechanisms that minimize AoI under different wireless network settings. The project will progressively extend the AoI framework to the wireless setting: Starting with simple single-hop networks and extending to mobile multi-hop networks. The research agenda includes the following tasks: 1)Single-Hop Wireless Networks: Develop methods to analyze AoI in single-hop wireless networks, and devise transmission scheduling schemes for minimizing AoI; 2) Multi-Hop Networks: develop routing and scheduling schemes for minimizing AoI in multi-hop wireless networks; and 3)Mobile Wireless Networks: develop fundamental limits on AoI in mobile networks, and develop packet relaying schemes for minimizing AoI.