Distributed coherence: fundamental building blocks, system concepts, and experimental demonstration

分布式一致性：基本构建模块、系统概念和实验演示

• 批准号: 1302104
• 负责人: John McNeill
• 金额: $ 32.72万
• 依托单位: Worcester Polytechnic Institute
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Continuing Grant
• 财政年份: 2013
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2013-07-01 至 2017-06-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1302104&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Distributed; coherence; fundamental; building; blocks

Over the past two decades, advances in multi-antenna wireless systems have opened up the possibility of tremendous increases in wireless communication throughputs. The practical realization of these increases in real-world wireless networks is constrained by size and cost considerations that limit the number of antennas, especially for mobile devices. This research aims to achieve the gains from multi-antenna techniques in a distributed fashion by having groups of wireless transceivers pool together and cooperatively act like a virtual antenna array. The concept of virtual arrays has broad transformative potential for wireless networks by extending the numerous benefits of multi-antenna systems to networks of single-antenna devices. We will prototype and demonstrate virtual array techniques experimentally on a software-defined radio platform, and we plan to share our implementations as reusable building blocks to stimulate technology transition and to promote interactions between the academic, open-source software community and radio hobbyist communities. The elements of a virtual array have an unknown, typically time-varying, geometry and are driven by independent oscillators, each with stochastic drift; the main technical challenge is in maintaining distributed coherence in the array in the presence of these effects. While this is a very challenging problem, recent results have demonstrated the feasibility of virtual arrays.This research will establish a solid theoretical foundation for distributed coherence and chart a clear path to technology transfer by applying the theory and techniques to the cross-layer design of concept systems based on virtual antenna arrays. Specifically we will develop a state space framework for tracking and prediction of oscillator dynamics and mobility, and scalable architectures for distributed transmission and reception appropriate for large distributed arrays of low-cost single-antenna devices. We will also identify fundamental tradeoffs and scaling laws for virtual arrays. We will apply and integrate the theory and techniques to two concept systems of great societal significance: Distributed base station provides multi-antenna capabilities even for low carrier frequencies where standard antenna arrays would be too bulky (e.g., white space frequencies). Distributed 911, enables a cluster of nodes to communicate with a possibly moving distant rescue vehicle which would be out of range for any one of the nodes. Our goal is to perform design and performance evaluation in sufficient detail to clear conceptual hurdles for implementation.

在过去的二十年中，多Antenna无线系统的进步打开了无线通信吞吐量大幅增加的可能性。实际实现了实际无线网络中这些增加的实际实现受到限制天线数量的大小和成本考虑因素的限制，尤其是对于移动设备而言。这项研究旨在通过将一组无线收发器池一起组合在一起，并像虚拟天线阵列一样，以分布式的方式从多面积技术中获得收益。虚拟阵列的概念通过将多种安特纳（Multi-Antenna Systems）的众多好处扩展到单端设备网络，从而具有无线网络的广泛变革潜力。我们将在软件定义的无线电平台上实验并展示虚拟阵列技术，并计划将我们的实现作为可重复使用的构建块，以刺激技术过渡并促进学术，开放式软件社区和无线电业余爱好者社区之间的互动。虚拟阵列的元素具有未知的，通常是时间变化的几何形状，并且由独立的振荡器驱动，每个振荡器都有随机漂移。主要的技术挑战是在存在这些效果的情况下保持阵列中的分布连贯性。尽管这是一个非常具有挑战性的问题，但最近的结果表明了虚拟阵列的可行性。这项研究将为分布式连贯性建立可靠的理论基础，并通过将理论和技术应用于基于虚拟天线阵列的概念系统的跨层设计，从而为技术转移的清晰途径绘制出了清晰的技术传输途径。具体而言，我们将开发一个状态空间框架，用于跟踪和预测振荡器动力学和移动性，以及用于分布式传输和接收的可扩展体系结构，适用于适用于低成本的单个Antenna设备的大型分布式阵列。我们还将确定虚拟阵列的基本折衷和扩展法律。我们将把理论和技术应用于两个具有巨大社会意义的概念系统：分布式基站即使对于低载波频率也可以提供多个Antenna的功能，而标准天线阵列太笨重（例如，空间频率）。分布式911，使一群节点可以与可能移动的遥远救援车进行通信，该救援车对于任何一个节点都将超出范围。我们的目标是进行足够详细的设计和绩效评估，以清除实施概念障碍。