NMSU CS Professor Jay Misra and his colleague Professor Hong Huang from the Klipsch School of Electrical and Computer Engineering was awarded a $593,233 DoD grant for their project titled “Theories and Algorithms to Achieve Linear Capacity Scaling in Wireless Networks through Opportunistic Usage of Direct Energy Links.”

Abstract: “Large-scale wireless networks are central to the DoD’s vision of net-centric warfare. Past research has shown that the capacity of multi-hop wireless networks decreases as the number of nodes in the network increases. To achieve linear capacity scaling with increase in network size several significant limitations, such as long latency, high technical complexity, restricted traffic pattern, or infrastructure requirement, need to be addressed. Dr. Huang (ECE) and Dr. Misra propose to achieve close-to-linear capacity scaling through the opportunistic usage of directed energy (DE) links. The objectives of the project are to: 1) investigate the fundamental capacity limits of wireless networks with DE links, and the conditions under which close-to-linear capacity scaling is achievable; 2) investigate the practical network algorithms and protocols that can achieve close-to-linear capacity scaling. Previous research on DE links mostly focus on acquiring and maintaining reliable DE links. In this research, the PIs aim to take a different approach and ask how best to utilize DE links even when they are unreliable and unpredictable. The PIs hypothesize that they can obtain a significant capacity increase in a large-scale network by averaging over many random unreliable DE links. Their approach is motivated by recent advances made in the network science namely, Kleinberg’s small world model, in which the network exhibits excellent performance when it is connected by a mixture of short-distance and long-distance links. Using a mixture of DE and omni-directional links, they hope to obtain similar performance gain. Scalable wireless networks are crucial to the DoD’s vision of net-centric warfare. The outcome of the research will provide an approach to close-to-linear capacity scaling that does not suffer from the limitations that existing approaches have. The project will enhance undergraduate and graduate students’ research experience in network science and will engage the participation of minority students at New Mexico State University. The project will also contribute to preparing students for employment by local area employers, which include a large presence of national laboratories and DoD establishments where network science has important applications.”