Redundancy in Wireless Communication Systems and Its Applications

The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology
Department of Computer Science and Engineering


PhD Thesis Defence


Title: "Redundancy in Wireless Communication Systems and Its Applications"

By

Mr. Hoi-Lun Ngan


Abstract

Uncertainty appears naturally in most systems and is one of their design 
considerations. Improperly managed uncertainty could lead to catastrophic 
consequences. Wireless communication systems are no exceptions. Channel 
conditions and multi-user access environments are well-known examples affecting 
the system design and performance. Various approaches and methodologies have 
been proposed to mitigate their adverse impacts to the systems.

Majority of them introduce additional and redundant resources to overcome 
uncertainty which ultimately improve the overall performance from system 
perspective. Nevertheless, such design usually suffers performance degradation 
from the standpoint of resource utilization. While the prescribed amount of 
additional resources is mandatory to accommodate proper uncertainty management, 
we argue that these redundant resources are capable to be reused for providing 
secondary and useful functionalities to the system. Hence, the redundant 
resources are better utilized.

In this thesis, we analyze the sources of uncertainty and redundancy mechanisms 
with emphasis on wireless communication systems. We discuss favorable criteria 
for recycling redundant resources to serve secondary purposes. Two scenarios 
and solutions in RFID environment are presented to demonstrate the 
applicability for reusing inherited redundancy. We will also show an 
experimental study of transmission data at physical layer and illustrate how it 
aids to determine root causes of packet drops in real-time. This ancillary 
information eliminates portion of uncertainty in transmission and allow further 
development of communication protocol to address different scenarios adaptively 
and efficiently.


Date:			Tuesday, 28 August 2012

Time:			3:00pm - 5:00pm

Venue:			Room 3501
 			Lifts 25/26

Chairman:		Prof. Lilong Cai (MECH)

Committee Members:	Prof. Lionel Ni (Supervisor)
 			Prof. Qiong Luo
 			Prof. Qian Zhang
 			Prof. Furong Gao (CBME)
                        Prof. Xiaohua Jia (Comp. Sci., CityU)


**** ALL are Welcome ****