Seminar Title: "Efficient Communication Protocols for Time-Varying Wireless Nanoscale Sensor Networks"
Speaker: Eisa Zarepour
Affiliation: University of New South Wales (Australia), School of Computer Science and Engineering

Seminar Abstract:
Advances in nanotechnology is paving the way for wireless nanoscale sensor networks (WNSNs), promising radically new applications in medical, biological, and chemical fields. However, the small scale poses formidable challenges for communication. The small nanomaterial-based antennas communicate in the Terahertz band, which coincide with the natural resonance frequencies of many molecule species causing severe molecular absorption and noise. The problem is particularly complicated if molecular composition of the channel changes over time, causing time-varying absorption and noise.

In addition, molecular absorption which is a new source of noise and path loss in the Terahertz band, is highly sensitive to the type of existing molecules in channel, pressure and temperature of the medium, and also communication frequency. In many applications in which WNSNs are envisaged to be used, the channel condition (composition, pressure and temperature) could be dynamic over time which means the molecular absorption and finally the noise and path loss would be variable over time. We refer to this type of network as time varying WNSN. For example, a WNSN that is monitoring the condition inside a chemical reactor might experience different types of molecules during the synthesis due to the occurrence of different reactions.

This research aims to design efficient reliable communication protocols over time varying WNSNs. It proposes dynamic frequency hopping and adaptive power selection as a mean to overcome the changing molecular composition problem in a time-varying WNSNs. The dynamic frequency/power selection problem is modelled as a Markov Decision Process to derive the optimal solutions, while several practical heuristics are proposed that achieve close to optimal solution.

Speaker Bio:
Eisa Zarepour is a Ph.D. candidate in the School of Computer Science and Engineering, University of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW, Australia. He received the Bachelor’s degrees in computer engineering from the University of Razi, Kermanshah, Iran and the Master degree in software engineering from Sharif University of Technology, Tehran, Iran in 2003 and 2006, respectively. His research interest is mainly in the area of nanoscale communication, specializing in designing efficient communication protocols for wireless nanoscale sensor networks.

For more information:

Ian Akyildiz, ian@ece.gatech.edu

Cordai Farrar cordai.farrar@ece.gatech.edu, 404-894-7890