Overview
This project is sponsored by NSF under grant DUE-1065069, "NeTS: Medium: AC-MWN: A Novel Architecture for Application-Aware Cognitive Multihop Wireless Networks" .
Project Abstract
Given the recent upward trend in wireless traffic, capacity demand increases faster than spectral efficiency and availability. However, it has been well-known that in wireless communications, some of the spectra are significantly under-utilized. This fact has attracted researchers from academia and industry who are interested in the next generation of cognitive radio communication systems. Despite the tremendous ongoing efforts on this research topic, there is a huge gap between the research on cognitive radios and the network applications. This project exploits a novel wireless networking paradigm called Application-Aware Cognitive Multihop Wireless Networks (AC-MWN). This architecture includes a mega network layer for multihop wireless networks, which combines the major functionalities of medium access control, network and transport layers in the traditional layered model of wireless networks. The mega network layer has cognition to the spectrum availability and to the requirements of the network applications. Additionally, the new design can efficiently utilize the spectrum resources and effectively adjust the application resources, such as storage and computational capabilities. While AC-MWN accommodates the requirements of different network applications, it also can drive the capacity closer to the upper theoretical limit for MWNs. Therefore, this architecture satisfies the requirements of application-aware cognitive multihop wireless networks. The AC-MWN research effort will have a significant impact on the better understanding of the designs for future cognitive multihop wireless networks and provide improvements for many application domains, including public safety, disaster rescues, environmental monitoring, and medical applications.
