Cooperative Networking - Searching For Algorithms in Logarithms

SPEAKER: Prof. Mehul Motani, National University of SingaporeABSTRACT: In the last 50 or so years, information theory has helped to characterize many fundamental limits of communications and has driven innovation at the physical layer. Moving up the protocol stack, networking for wireline networks is fairly mature but wireless networks have advanced in a somewhat ad-hoc manner. One of the main challenges is that nodes in wireless networks can interact and cooperate in complex ways, often blurring the line between physical and network layer functions. In this talk, I will describe some of my research work which falls broadly in the area of cooperative networking for wireless ad-hoc and sensor networks. On one hand, we look to network information theory to help us understand the limits of communication and cooperation in networks, e.g., relay, multiple relay, and interference channels. On the other hand, we design algorithms and protocols for cooperative networking, e.g., for multichannel MAC, directional antennas and collaborative signal processing. Combining these two approaches, we describe how information theory in a network setting can suggest efficient approaches to routing for cooperative relaying.BIO: Mehul Motani is currently an Assistant Professor in Electrical and Computer Engineering at the National University of Singapore. He graduated with a PhD from Cornell University, focusing on information theory and coding for CDMA systems. Prior to his PhD, he was a member of technical staff at Lockheed Martin in Syracuse, New York for over four years. Recently he has been working on research problems which sit at the boundary of information theory, communications and networking, including the design of wireless ad-hoc and sensor network systems. He was awarded the Intel Foundation Fellowship for work related to his PhD in 2000 and nominated for the Best Teacher award at NUS. He is on the organizing committees for ISIT 2006 & 2007 and has served on the technical program committees of MobiCom 2007 and many other conferences. He participates actively in IEEE & Sigmobile/ACM and has served as the secretary of the IEEE Information Theory Society Board of Governors.Host: Urbashi Mitra, ubli@usc.edu

Location: Hughes Aircraft Electrical Engineering Center (EEB) - 248

Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

Contact: Mayumi Thrasher