Architecture and Protocols in Wireless Networking.

P. R. Kumar
Franklin Woeltge Professor
Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign

Abstract:

Due to the Maxwellian nature of the wireless medium, information can be transferred using methods quite different methods from wireline networking. For example, multiple transmissions can be simultaneously decoded at a receiver, and concurrent transmissions in the vicinity of a receiver need not destructively "collide." As another example, one can even use analog rather than digital methods for relaying. Given the infinitude of such options, a fundamental question that aries is: How should be information be transferred in wireless networks? This talk will address the issue of characterizing an order-optimal architecture. Interest subsequently devolves to the issue of how to boost performance pre-constants, and what may be appropriate protocols for such second generation protocols efforts.

(Joint work with A. Agarwal, G. Baliga, V. Borkar, A. Giridhar, S. Graham, P.
Gupta, V. Kawadia, S. Narayanaswamy, K.Plarre, R. Rozovsky, V. Raghunathan,
L-L. Xie, F. Xue)

Bio:

P. R. Kumar is currently Franklin Woeltge Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering, and a Research Professor in the Coordinated Science Laboratory. He is a Fellow of the IEEE. He was the recipient of the Donald P. Eckman Award of the American Automatic Control Council in 1985. He has presented plenary lectures at the IEEE Information Theory Workshop, INFORMS Telecommunication Conference, IPSN '03: International Workshop on Information Processing in Sensor Networks, IEEE TENCON'2003, WiOpt'03: Modeling and Optimization in Mobile and Ad Hoc and Wireless Networks, 10th Mediterranean Conference on Control and Automation, German Open Conference on Probability and Statistics, 2001 SIAM Annual Meeting, Eleventh Brazilian Automatic Control Congress, 1995 IEEE/IAS International Conference on Industrial Automation and Control, SIAM Annual Meeting, the IEEE Conference on Decision and Control, the SIAM Conference on Optimization, and the SIAM Conference on Control in the 90's: Achievements, Opportunities, and Challenges, etc.

His current research interests include the areas of wireless networks, sensor networks, and the convergence of control with communication and computing. Within this he is working on problems in network information theory, architecture, middleware, protocol development, performance evaluation, software development, implementation, experimentation, and application development. More broadly he is interested in wafer fabrication plants, manufacturing systems, machine learning, control, and stochastic systems.