Research Overview:

 

My research interests include wireless communications, information theory and communication theory. Below are some of my research projects with links to relevant publications. A chronological list can be found in my publications page.

 

·         Cooperative Communications

·         Joint Source and Channel Coding for Wireless Networks

·         Wireless Physical Layer Security

·         Power Efficient Multimedia Communications

·         Preamble and Feedback Design in Multiple Antenna Systems

·         Spread-Spectrum Techniques for Multiple Transmit Antennas

·         Low Complexity Multiuser Communications

 

v    Cooperative Communications

 

Wireless communication systems suffer from fading and multipath distortion, as well as interference caused by multiple users operating over a limited bandwidth. Cooperation of users, by enabling wireless terminals to assist each other in transmitting information to their desired destinations, provides a good solution to the problems that current wireless technologies face. At the physical layer, terminals overhear one another’s signals, process and retransmit to form a virtual antenna array. Through cooperation, it is possible to obtain the spatial diversity benefits of multi-input multi-output (MIMO) systems without necessarily having a physical antenna array at each terminal. Furthermore, unlike MIMO systems, cooperation is able to successfully mitigate shadow fading. Cooperative communication techniques can easily adapt to the changing environment by opportunistically redistributing network resources such as energy and bandwidth. Incorporating the notion of cooperation at the medium access control (MAC) layer extends the benefits to large networks resulting in high throughput, low delay, reduced interference, low transmitted power and extended coverage. Cross-layer design between the application layer and the physical layer enables high quality multimedia transmission over cooperative wireless links.

 

Our work in this area spans multiple layers of the protocol stack including physical, MAC, networking and application layers as well as cross-layer design. We are interested the theory of cooperative networking (such as information theoretic aspects) as well as implementation (such as a cooperative networking testbed). Our paper “User cooperation-diversity: Part I and II”   won 2004 Communications Society Stephen O. Rice Paper Prize in the Field of Communications Theory, as the best original paper published in IEEE Transactions on Communications in 2003. The paper “Diversity-multiplexing tradeoff in half-duplex relay systems” was selected as the best paper of the Communication Theory Symposium of ICC 2007. More information can be found in the Cooperative Communications Laboratory web site.

 

 

This research is partially funded by NSF, Philips, WICAT, CATT and Othmer Institute for Interdisciplinary Studies.

 

Related Publications:

 

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  • O. Sahin, O. Simeone and E. Erkip. Interference channel with and out-of-band relay. Under review, IEEE Transactions on Information Theory.
  • K. Bakanoglu, S. Tomasin and E. Erkip. Resource allocation for the parallel relay channel with multiple relays. Under review, IEEE Transactions on Wireless Communications.
  • O. Simeone, E. Erkip and S. Shamai. Robust transmission and interference management for femtocells with unreliable network access. Under review, IEEE Journal on Selected Areas on Communications.
  • O. Simeone, O. Somekh, E. Erkip, H. V. Poor, S. Shamai. Robust communication via decentralized processing with unreliable backhaul links. Under review, IEEE Transactions on Information Theory.
  • O. Alay, T. Korakis, Y. Wang, E. Erkip and S. Panwar. Layered wireless video multicast using relays. Under review, IEEE Transactions on Circuits and Systems for Video Technology.
  • F. Verde, T. Korakis, E. Erkip and A. Scaglione. A simple recruitment scheme of multiple nodes for cooperative MAC. Under review, IEEE Transactions on Communications.

 

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v      2010:

 

  • O. Simeone, E. Erkip and S. Shamai. Oblivious relaying for primitive interference relay channels. To appear, Proceedings of 2010 International Zurich Seminar on Communications, Zurich, Switzerland, March 2010 (invited).
  • O. Simeone, E. Erkip and S. Shamai. Achievable rates for multicell systems with femtocells and network MIMO. To appear, Proceedings of 2010 International Zurich  Seminar on Communications, Zurich, Switzerland, March 2010 (invited).

 

 

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v    Joint Source and Channel Coding for Wireless Networks

 

Transmission of multimedia signals over wireless networks poses several challenges that do not exist in wired networks. Bandwidth limitations of the wireless channel, interference from multiple users operating in the same band and channel variations due to fading become bottlenecks for typical multimedia applications that require high bandwidth and an error resilient communication medium.

 

This research outlines a cross-layer approach between the application layer and the physical layer to maintain desired end-to-end signal quality for multimedia transmission over bandwidth and power limited multiuser wireless channels. The objective is to design joint source and channel coding techniques to minimize the end-to-end source distortion. A general source and channel separation theorem for wireless networks does not exist; optimality of Shannon's separate source and channel code design fails for non-ergodic fading channels or for multiuser communication systems. On the other hand, even when source and channel separation is not optimal, it is desirable to have only a loose coupling between the source and channel coders to simplify the designs.

 

This project addresses joint source and channel coding for the fundamental building blocks of a wireless network, including single user (point-to-point), multiple access and relay channels. The system model is general to encompass different communication scenarios: Correlation among the source signals is allowed, the receivers may have correlated side information, the channel can be time-invariant or fading may be present, links can have multiple degrees of freedom such as multiple antennas or multiple fading blocks. This project investigates the design of optimal joint source and channel coding strategies, and performance improvements when minimal interaction among the source and channel coders is allowed. The goal is to discover scenarios under which separation is optimal, or close to optimal.

 

Our project also considers practical applications, in particular unicast and multicast wireless video. The emphasis is on cross-layer design to improve the quality of wireless video transmission using cooperative networking.

 

One of our papers in this area, “Minimum expected distortion in Gaussian joint source-channel layered broadcast coding with successive refinement,” was selected for the Student Paper Award at ISIT 2007.

 

This research is partially funded by NSF, Philips and WICAT.

 

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(Publications that consider source and channel coding with relaying/cooperation can be found under “Cooperative Communications” project)

 

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v    Wireless Physical Layer Security

 

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(Publications that consider physical layer security for relaying/cooperation can be found under “Cooperative Communications” project)

 

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Book Chapter:

 

  • D. Gunduz, E. Erkip and H.V. Poor. Source Coding Under Security Constraints. To appear in Securing Wireless Communications at the Physical Layer, edited by Wade Trappe and Ruoheng Liu, Springer-Verlag, 2010 (invited).

 

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v    Power Efficient Multimedia Communications

 

Energy management in portable multimedia communications devices is becoming more and more critical and complex, with the convergence of computing and communication technologies, particularly when video signal processing and secure communications are integrated. There are many demands on the power supply of a portable information device, including the power supply, display, signal processing hardware, and modem. Our research attempts to  prolong battery life by adapting the signal processing, radio transmission, encryption, and battery discharge operations of a wireless terminal to changing operating conditions. The operating conditions include wireless channel quality, network activity, and remaining battery charge.

 

Our recent work provides an approach for minimizing the total power consumption of a mobile transmitter due to source compression, channel coding and transmission subject to fixed end-to-end source distortion. We have illustrated, both in an abstract setting and in a realistic H.263 compressed video over wireless, that an optimized system which adapts the transmission power, compression, and channel coding parameters to the channel conditions and the implementation platform prolongs the battery life considerably. We have also investigated the effects of multiple interfering users on the power optimization problem, and how simultaneous transmission of video and data can be accomplished in a power limited environment.

 

This research is a collaborative effort among five Polytechnic faculty with diverse relevant research interests.  More information on this collaboration can be found in the DREAM-IT (Dynamically Reconfigurable Energy Aware Multimedia Information Terminals) project web page. 

 

This project is partially funded by NSF ITR and Research Instrumentation Programs and WICAT.

 

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Book Chapter:

 

  • E. Erkip, X. Lu, Y. Wang, D. Goodman. Total power optimization for wireless multimedia communication. In System Level Power Optimization for Wireless Multimedia Communication: Power Aware Computing, edited by R. Karri and D. Goodman, Chapter 1, Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2002. Conference version presented in IMPACCT 2002, Integrated Management of Power Aware Communications, Computing and Networking Workshop, in conjunction with ICC 2002, New York, New York, May 2002.

 

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v    Preamble and Feedback Design in Multiple Antenna Systems

 

Most practical systems provide channel estimation at the receiver through preambles. Furthermore, this information can be partially relayed to the transmitter through some kind of feedback, in the form of ARQ or power control. However, it is not clear how effective these ad-hoc channel estimation and feedback methods are in utilizing network resources, what losses are incurred by imperfect or finite rate estimation and feedback strategies and how the transmitter and receiver should be designed based on partial channel estimation and feedback. These issues are especially relevant for multiple-antenna systems where considerable gains can be achieved via feedback.

 

We have recently studied  achievable rates for some practical multi-antenna preamble and feedback strategies. We have also provided analytical bounds on the outage probability for finite rate feedback and illustrated how one can design good beamformers based this finite rate feedback for multiple transmit antennas.

 

This research is carried in collaboration with Rice University and  partially funded by NSF.

 

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v    Spread-Spectrum Techniques for Multiple Transmit Antennas

 

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v    Low Complexity Multiuser Communications

 

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