Energy-efficient uncoordinated communication and modern statistical learning

• Applicant: Dr.-Ing. Alexander Fengler
• Subject Area: Communication Technology and Networks, High-Frequency Technology and Photonic Systems, Signal Processing and Machine Learning for Information Technology
• Term: since 2024
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 555885380

The aim of this project is to develop new protocols for uncoordinated radio access networks (RANs) that support a large density of low-cost low-energy transmitters, thus realising the massive machine-type communication (mMTC) scenario. Current generation systems are not suited to support the requirements of this scenario to a full extent due to the dissenting requirements of mMTC and typical broadband communication. The traffic of mMTC is characterised by short message lengths (in the order of 100 bits) and large densities of transmitting devices (10^3 - 10^6 per receiver), of which only a comparably small number is concurrently active. The design of receivers that can support this type of traffic with a 10+ year battery life at the transmitter is an important challenge for next-generation networks. This project will consist of rigorous information and communication theoretic analysis, as well as practical algorithm design. In particular, I propose to investigate novel receiver architectures which do not require prior channel state information but instead learn the channel state during reception by exploiting the structure of the data. This is made possible through recent theoretical and algorithmic advances in signal processing and statistical learning. Complementing the receiver design, the project will explore the design of novel binary and non-binary coding techniques that are particularly well suited to the proposed receiver architecture. The close mathematical connection between the treated problems and other problems in statistics, signal processing, and machine learning will make the results of this project relevant beyond wireless communication.

• DFG Programme: Independent Junior Research Groups