Ulukus to exploit wireless network interference in new NSF grant

Professor Sennur Ulukus (ECE/ISR) is the principal investigator for a new NSF collaborative research grant, “Synergistic Exploitation of Network Dynamics and Knowledge Heterogeneity in Wireless Networks.”

The continued growth of wireless networks and the services they provide is critically dependent on the availability and efficient use of wireless spectrum. This increasing demand is already pushing current commercial wireless networks to their limits and accentuating the need for transformative approaches for wireless system design. In response, engineers have been rapidly evolving these systems towards a dense, user-deployed, heterogeneous infrastructure characterized by aggressive reuse of spectrum. While these evolutionary architectures can realize high data rates, they operate in the presence of severe interference, a condition engineers traditionally try to suppress or mitigate.

Ulukus will work to exploit interference as side information. She will develop new approaches that embrace interference through synergistic exploitation of feedback, network dynamics and network knowledge heterogeneity.

The project will characterize the gain provided by feedback, and analyze the scalability and dependence of such gains on network topology. In addition, the project will investigate the impact of dynamical variations in network topology and devise algorithms that harness such variations to enhance overall network performance. Ulukus also will investigate the optimal use of heterogeneous channel knowledge for multi-flow, multi-antenna wireless systems, by considering scenarios in which network channel knowledge exhibits variability in spatial and temporal domains, and developing algorithms to exploit such variability.

Published September 17, 2014