Title:  Toward Infrastructure Mobility for Next-Generation Wireless Networks

Committee:

Dr. Ragupathy Sivakumar, ECE, Chair , Advisor

Dr. Douglas Blough, ECE

Dr. John Barry, ECE

Dr. Gee-Kung Chang, ECE

Dr. Karthik Ramachandran, College of Business

Abstract: The objective of the proposed research is to investigate the methods to enhance the robustness of wireless communications using infrastructure mobility. The position of a wireless device in a network has considerable influence on the performance of the network, as wireless signal quality at the receiver side heavily depends on the physical environmental features. Conventional telecommunication technologies hitherto have had no ability to improve the physical environmental conditions when necessary. Historically, the design of algorithms and protocols for wireless networks has been based on the assumption that the clients are mobile and the AP or base station is static. The client mobility, furthermore, is driven by user needs and behavior, which can potentially degrade network performance. With the recent and significant advancements in wireless communications, robotics, and embedded systems, the robotic-based wireless networks can be meaningfully and practically devised to combat the non-robust wireless channel conditions. The concept of robotic wireless networks can be applied in extensive scenarios (e.g., industrial internet of things (IIoT)). With the advantages of mobility given in robotic networks, the wireless channel conditions can be significantly improved from the infrastructure perspective.