ABSTRACT

Multitudes of devices like vehicles and sensors have recently acquired both Internet connectivity and significant computing power. Much networking research today aims to harness these devices to enable new, cross-device user applications. For instance, external sensors may use cellular and Wi-Fi networks to send measurements to a group of smartphones running augmented reality applications; these smartphones can then work together to analyze the sensor data and display the right information to their users. However, applications can only make use of multiple devices if the device owners agree to cooperate with each other. The goal of this work is to enable cross-device applications by developing mechanisms that incentivize such cooperation. The findings from this project will be integrated into an education plan that emphasizes the role of user and application needs in shaping the evolution of Internet-based technologies. This plan includes developing new undergraduate and graduate courses and short workshop courses for middle and high school students that encourage girls to enter engineering fields. The researcher will incorporate the findings in online blog posts aimed at the general public, and will pursue industry collaborations and outreach to interdisciplinary research communities.

The proposed work has two main objectives: (1) to derive algorithms for devices to optimally buy and sell bandwidth and computing resources, and (2) to analytically characterize the resulting marketplace outcomes in terms of the benefit to participating devices. It will be divided into three research thrusts that each address both objectives. First, a simple type of marketplace is considered, in which devices can be either users or providers. User devices decide whether to subscribe to bandwidth or computing resources from one or more provider devices. Second, a more dynamic marketplace is considered, in which users can dynamically negotiate for bandwidth and computing resources from providers, depending on their specific needs over time. The third research thrust builds on the user and provider strategies from the first two thrusts, and considers devices that can dynamically decide whether to act as users and providers, so as to maximize their benefits from participating in bandwidth and computing resource marketplaces. Each research thrust will result in new models, theorems, and decision algorithms that account for the dynamics and inter-dependencies of users' bandwidth and computing resource needs. Small-scale human subject experiments and large-scale virtual test-bed experiments will be used to validate the theoretical work.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

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