Narayan Earns NSF Grants for Wireless Research

Professor Prakash Narayan (ECE/ISR) has received a three-year grant from the National Science Foundation's (NSF) Electrical and Communication Systems Division to conduct research on free-space optical and radio frequency (RF) wireless hybrid communication systems. Narayan and his students will investigate a new class of information theoretic models for a hybrid wireless RF and optical communication system. The main objectives of their research are to characterize fundamental limits of performance, and to provide qualitative and quantitative guidelines for the design and optimal use of the components of the hybrid models.

Narayan is also principal investigator (PI) of a recent three-year grant from the NSF's Division of Computer and Communication Foundations to study information theoretic network security. Professor Alexander Barg (ECE/ISR) is co-PI of this project. Using ideas from information theory and coding theory, secret keys for network users will be constructed in this project by exploiting connections with distributed multi-terminal data compression. Algorithmic aspects of secret key generation in wireless networks will be supported by InterDigital Communications Corporation located in King of Prussia, PA, through the Institute for Systems Research (ISR) Strategic Partners Program.

Published September 15, 2006