Award Abstract # 1423455
NeTS: Small: Collaborative: Infrastructure Mobility

NSF Org: CNS
Division Of Computer and Network Systems
Recipient: UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS
Initial Amendment Date: August 26, 2014
Latest Amendment Date: August 26, 2014
Award Number: 1423455
Award Instrument: Standard Grant
Program Manager: Thyagarajan Nandagopal
CNS
 Division Of Computer and Network Systems
CSE
 Directorate for Computer and Information Science and Engineering
Start Date: October 1, 2014
End Date: September 30, 2016 (Estimated)
Total Intended Award Amount: $66,475.00
Total Awarded Amount to Date: $66,475.00
Funds Obligated to Date: FY 2014 = $66,475.00
History of Investigator:
  • Romit Roy Choudhury (Principal Investigator)
    croy@illinois.edu
Recipient Sponsored Research Office: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
506 S WRIGHT ST
URBANA
IL  US  61801-3620
(217)333-2187
Sponsor Congressional District: 13
Primary Place of Performance: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
IL  US  61820-7473
Primary Place of Performance
Congressional District:
13
Unique Entity Identifier (UEI): Y8CWNJRCNN91
Parent UEI: V2PHZ2CSCH63
NSF Program(s): Networking Technology and Syst
Primary Program Source: 01001415DB NSF RESEARCH & RELATED ACTIVIT
Program Reference Code(s): 7923
Program Element Code(s): 736300
Award Agency Code: 4900
Fund Agency Code: 4900
Assistance Listing Number(s): 47.070

ABSTRACT

Mobile computing has traditionally implied mobile clients connected to a static infrastructure. This project breaks away from this point of view and envisions the possibility of injecting mobility into infrastructure. The PIs envision a WiFi access point on wheels that moves to optimize desired performance metrics. Movements need not necessarily be all around the floor of a home or office, neither do they have to operate on batteries, or connect wirelessly to the Internet. At homes, they could remain tethered to power and Ethernet outlets while moving in small areas (perhaps under the study table). In offices of the future, perhaps APs could move on tracks installed on top of false ceilings. The cloud could perhaps coordinate their mobility based on how users move within the environment, or how traffic and interferences change in the network. This project explores the viability of this vision and will present thorough measurements from various home/office environments.

Initial measurements with moving WiFi APs in residential and enterprise environments exhibit promise. Analysis finds that complex multipath characteristics of indoor environments cause large fluctuations in link quality even when the antenna moves in the scale of one foot. Mobile APs can leverage this spatial variation by relocating to a pixel that is strong for its own clients and yet weak from its interferers. When multiple APs are coordinated by a central controller, the motion paths of the APs need to be jointly planned to optimize global network parameters. Heuristics will be developed that first assume the knowledge of AP locations; based on the outcome of this heuristic, the assumption might be relaxed. The project will also consider client mobility and how APs adapt to them, perhaps based on the quality of channel changes available from channel state information (CSI) in today's WiFi cards. If mobility proves to offer additional gains despite the advances in current technologies, robotic wireless networking might become an important and exciting direction of the future.

PROJECT OUTCOMES REPORT

Disclaimer

This Project Outcomes Report for the General Public is displayed verbatim as submitted by the Principal Investigator (PI) for this award. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this Report are those of the PI and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation; NSF has not approved or endorsed its content.

There is growing agreement that wireless capacity (at the PHY and MAC layers) is reaching saturation. Many believe that the next “jump” in network capacity will emerge from new ways of organizing networks. While there exists substantial work on new network architectures, one assumption that most proposals seem to make is that infrastructure – WiFi APs, enterprise WLANs, cell towers – is static. This project considers the possibility of relaxing this assumption and explores the implications of physically moving wireless network infrastructure to improve/optimize desired performance metrics.

For example, we envision WiFi access points on wheels that move within a small region to exploit the multipath nature of wireless signals. Movements need not be all around the floor, neither do they have to operate on batteries. As a first step, WiFi APs at home could remain tethered to power and Ethernet outlets while moving in small areas (perhaps under the couch). If such systems prove successful, perhaps future buildings and cities could offer explicit support for network infrastructure mobility. Our results are already promising demonstratingthat mobility is a valuable degree of freedom missing in today’s network infrastructure, and can complement many of today's techniques such as beamforming, MIMO, power control, channel selection, etc.

As another example of infrastructure mobility, we envision drones flying into high demand areas, hovering at strategic locations, and serving as cellular proxies to ground clients. Analogous to fire engines, these drones can offer on-demand network service, alleviating unpredictable problems such as sudden traffic hotspots, poor coverage, and natural disasters.

Ovrall, this project is a foray into the landscape of such "robotic wireless networks", bringing together the advances in robotic systems and the rapidly growing problems in tomorrow's wireless networks. The attached figure captures the vision through a single illustration.


Last Modified: 01/15/2017
Modified by: Romit Roy Choudhury

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