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Vision

Summary of Proposed Work

People

Annual Meetings Slides

Publications

 

 

 

MAASCOM

Modeling, Analysis, and Algorithms for Stochastic Control of Multi-Scale Military Networks

 

 

Vision

We will develop a theoretical foundation for modeling, analysis, and control of tactical military networks. The tactical network is a highly heterogeneous, complex, and mobile system. Information occurs at multiple time-scales, with varied levels of aggregation, limited feedback, and power and energy constraints. Our goal will be to answering fundamental questions about the role that time-scales, network dynamics, and correlations play on the performance and security of military networks, we will develop provably efficient and practical control mechanisms to achieve high performance, robustness, and security.

 

Summary of Proposed Work

In this project we plan to develop a theory for modeling, analysis, and control of military net-works in the presence of long-range-dependence (LRD). This research will lead to a long-overdue union of stochastic control, statistics, queueing theory, complexity theory, and distributed algorithms, which is necessary for the development of radically new strategies for controlling the increasingly complex military networks. Our overarching goal is to develop a theory that is conceptually unifying, mathematically rigorous, and leads to the development of low-complexity and practically-implementable control and distributed detection algorithms that will provide an enormous tactical advantage to the U.S. military.

In this project, we take a radically different approach than the state-of-the-art in traffic modeling, where the network is viewed as a physical entity whose laws are being passively observing through traffic studies. Rather, our viewpoint is that the network is very much an engineering entity with protocols and mechanisms that can be actively controlled to affect network performance, and to improve network security. Thus, we will develop flexible statistical models that can characterize a large class of traffic, and devise network control mechanisms that exploit correlations such as LRD to improve the performance and security of the network. To that end, we will pursue research along three major inter-related fronts.

 

*      Traffic Modeling, Analysis, and Dimensioning: Our goal will be to understand the impact of key attributes of military networks on network traffic. For example, we will study the impact of protocol hierarchy, wireless interference, and mobility on network traffic. We will develop flexible and accurate models of network traffic, and develop mathematical tools to analyze the queueing and delay performance of these networks.

 

*      Network Control: Our goal will be to develop a unifying theory for network control that exploits the interaction between protocol layers and functionalities, operates at appropriate time-scales, and is effective in the presence of LRD. We will explore the fundamental limits of distributed control mechanisms and develop low-complexity cross-layer solutions that account for the practical realities of military networks. Our solutions will be designed to meet the stringent performance requirements of military networks, such as low delays and losses, and high reliability, throughput, and robustness.

 

*      Distributed Intrusion Detection and Security: Our goal will be to quantify the extent to which traffic flows in military networks can be detected by a network of distributed monitors. We will develop an integrative approach that combines LRD modeling and network control to develop nonparametric or semi-parametric techniques for the distributed detection of information flow and flow changes.

 

*      Significance to DoD: The outcomes of this project will result in distributed, low-complexity, and robust control mechanisms for achieving high network performance, intrusion detection, and improved security. These outcomes will significantly enhance DoD’s ability to build future combat systems for network-centric operations. Further, the rigorous and conceptually unifying mathematical techniques developed in this proposal will enable a better understanding of the dynamics and control of large and complex networks.

 

 

People

*      Principle Investigators:

·         Ness B. Shroff (The Ohio State University)

·         Eytan Modiano (Massachusetts Institute of Technology)

·         Ian Akyildiz (Georgia Institute of Technology)

·         John Baras (University of Maryland)

·         William S. Cleveland (Purdue University)

·         Anthony Ephremides (University of Maryland)

·         P. R. Kumar (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign)

·         Jennifer Neville (Purdue University)

·         Lang Tong (Cornell University)

·         Mark D. Ward (Purdue University)

 

*      Graduate Research Assistants:

·         Nesreen Ahmed

·         Saptarshi Guha

·         Srikanth Hariharan

·         Paul Kidwell

·         Jinsub Kim

·         Zhoujia Mao

·         Michalis Markakis

·         Pu Wang

·         Jin Xia

 

*      Post-doctoral Researchers:

·         Jin-Ghoo Choi

·         Changhee Joo

·         Long Le

 

 

Annual Meetings Slides

*      Kick-off Meeting, Sept. 2008 [Agenda]
Meeting slides: Shroff, Modiano, Akyildiz, Baras, Cleveland, Neville, Tong, Ward

 

*      Interim Progress Report (IPR) Meeting, Sept. 2009 [Agenda]
Meeting slides: Shroff, Cleveland, Cleveland(2), Ward, Akyildiz, Shroff(2), Modiano, Kumar, Ephremides, Tong, Tong(2), Neville, Baras, Baras(2)

 

 

Publications

1.       Scott Graham, Girish Baliga and P. R. Kumar, "Abstractions, Architecture, Mechanisms, and a Middleware for Networked Control," IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control, vol. 54, no. 7, pp. 1490-1503, July 2009.

2.       Ioannis Krikidis, Beiyu Rong, and Anthony Ephremides, "Network-Level Cooperation for a Multiple-Access Channel via Dynamic Decode-and-Forward," IEEE Transactions on Information Theory, 2009.

3.       Beiyu Rong and Anthony Ephremides, "On Stability and Throughput for Multiple Access with Cooperation," IEEE Transactions on Information Theory, 2009.

4.       T. He and L. Tong, “Detection of Information Flows”, IEEE Trans. on Information Theory, 2008.

5.       A. Khreishah, C.-C. Wang, and N.B. Shroff, "Cross-layer Optimization for Wireless Multihop Networks with Pairwise Intersession Network Coding,"  IEEE Journal on Selected Areas in Communications, vol. 27, no. 5, June 2009, pp. 602- 621.

6.       Anna Pantelidou and Anthony Ephremides, "A Review of the Scheduling Problem in Wireless Networks," to appear in JCN.

7.       G. R. Gupta and N. B. Shroff,  "Delay Analysis for Wireless Networks with Single Hop Traffic and General Interference Constraints," to appear in  IEEE/ACM Trans. on Networking, 2009.

8.       J. Kim, X. Lin, N. B. Shroff, and P. Sinha, "Minimizing Delay and Maximizing Lifetime for Wireless Sensor Networks With Anycast," to appear in IEEE/ACM Trans. on Networking, 2009.

9.       C. Joo, X. Lin, and N. B. Shroff, “Understanding the Capacity Region of the Greedy Maximal Scheduling Algorithm in Multi-hop Wireless Networks”, to appear in IEEE/ACM Trans. on Networking, 2009.

10.   C. Joo, X. Lin, and N. B. Shroff, “Greedy Maximal Matching: Performance Limits for Arbitrary Network Graphs Under the Node-exclusive Interference Model”, to appear in IEEE Trans. on Automatic Control, 2009.

11.   C. Joo and N. B. Shroff, “Performance of Random Access Scheduling Schemes in Multi-hop Wireless Networks”, to appear in IEEE/ACM Trans. on Networking, 2009.

12.   Zheng Zeng and P. R. Kumar, "Towards Optimal Exploitation of Physical Layer Information in OFDM Wireless networks," Proceedings of the Fourth International Wireless Internet Conference (WICON 2008), Maui, Nov. 17-19, 2008. (Invited Paper).

13.   J.S. Baras, "Autonomic Networked Information and Control Systems: the Critical Effects of Connectivity Architectures", 2009 Workshop on Information Theory and Applications (ITA09),  University of California, San Diego, February 8-13, 2009, invited paper.

15.   Yan Gao and P. R. Kumar, "Joint Congestion Control and Random Access MAC in Multi-hop Wireless Networks via a Simplied Model," To appear in 48th IEEE Conference on Decision and Control. (invited)

16.   Nikolaos M. Freris, Vivek S. Borkar, and P. R. Kumar, "A model-based approach to clock synchronization," To appear in 48th IEEE Conference on Decision and Control. (invited)

17.   Hemant Kowshik and P. R. Kumar, "Zero-error Function Computation in Sensor Networks," To appear in 48th IEEE Conference on Decision and Control. (invited)

18.   S. Hariharan and N. B. Shroff, "Maximizing Aggregated Revenue in Sensor Networks under Deadline Constraints" to appear in the 48th IEEE Conference on Decision and Control (CDC), Dec. 2009, Shanghai, China. (invited)

19.   Krishna Jagannathan, Eytan Modiano, Lizhong Zheng, "On the Trade-off between Control Rate and Congestion in Single Server Systems," IEEE Infocom, April 2009.

20.   Krishna Jagannathan, Eytan Modiano, Lizhong Zheng, "Effective Resource Allocation in a Queue: How Much Control is Necessary?" Allerton Conference on Communication, Control, and Computing, September 2008.

21.   Long Le, Krishna Jagannathan and Eytan Modiano, “Delay analysis of max-weight scheduling in wireless ad hoc networks,” Conference on Information Science and Systems, Baltimore, MD, March, 2009.

22.   Hyang-Won Lee, Eytan Modiano and Long Bao Le, “Distributed Throughput Maximization in Wireless Networks via Random Power Allocation,”  IEEE Wiopt, Seoul, Korea, June 2009.

23.   C. L. Robinson and P. R. Kumar, "Networked Control Systems with Packet Delays and Losses," Proceedings of the 47th IEEE Conference on Decision and Control, pp. 4602-4607, Cancun, Dec. 9-11, 2008.

24.   Jerry Chiang, Jason Haas, Yih-Chun Hu, P. R. Kumar and Jihyuk Choi, "Fundamental Limits on Secure Clock Synchronization and Man-In-The-Middle Detection in Fixed Wireless Networks," Proceedings of Infocom 2009, April 19-25, 2009, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

25.   Hong Hou, V. Borkar and P. R. Kumar, "A Theory of QoS for Wireless," Proceedings of Infocom 2009, April 19-25, 2009, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

26.   Hong Hou and P. R. Kumar, "Admission Control and Scheduling for QoS Guarantees for Variable-Bit-Rate Applications on Wireless Channels," Proceedings of MobiHoc 2009, pp. 175-184. New Orleans May 18-21, 2009.

27.   Vinod Prabhakaran and P. R. Kumar, "Communication by Sleeping: Optimizing a Relay Channel under Wake and Transmit Power Costs," Proceedings of 2009 IEEE International Symposium on Information Theory (ISIT 2009), Seoul, June 28-July 3, 2009.

28.   Anna Pantelidou and Anthony Ephremides, "A cross-layer view of wireless multicasting under uncertainty," ITW, 2009.

29.   Anna Pantelidou and Anthony Ephremides, "What is optimal scheduling in wireless networks?" WICON, 2008.

30.   Beiyu Rong and Anthony Ephremides, "Cooperation Above the Physical Layer: the Case of a Simple Network," ISIT, 2009.

31.   Beiyu Rong, and Anthony Ephremides, "On Opportunistic Cooperation for Maximizing the Stability Region With Multipacket Reception," NETCOOP, 2009.

32.   Beiyu Rong Anthony Ephremides, "The Effect of Cooperation at the Network Protocol Level," WICON, 2008.

33.   Beiyu Rong Anthony Ephremides, "Protocol-level Cooperation in Wireless Networks: Stable Throughput and Delay Analysis," WiOpt, 2009.

34.   J. S. Baras, "Efficient Connectivity Topologies for Networked Control Systems", SIAM Conference on Control & Its Applications (CT09), Denver, Colorado, July 6-8, 2009.

35.   G. R. Gupta and N. B. Shroff, “Delay Analysis for Multi-Hop Wireless Networks”, Proceedings of Infocom 2009, April 19-25, 2009, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

36.   R. Li, L. Ying, A. Eryilmaz and N. B. Shroff, “A Unified Approach to Optimizing Performance in Networks Serving Heterogeneous Flows”, Proceedings of Infocom 2009, April 19-25, 2009, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

37.   S. Sellke, C. –C. Wang, S. Bagchi and N. B. Shroff, “Covert TCP/IP Timing Channels: Theory to Implementation”, Proceedings of Infocom 2009, April 19-25, 2009, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

38.   J. Kim, X. Lin and N. B. Shroff, “Optimal Anycast Technique for Delay-Sensitive Energy-Constrained Asynchronous Wireless Sensor Networks”, Proceedings of Infocom 2009, April 19-25, 2009, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

39.   G. R. Gupta, S. Sanghavi and N. B. Shroff, "Node Weighted Scheduling," in ACM Sigmetrics 2009.

40.   Pu Wang and Ian F. Akyildiz, "Spatial Correlation and Mobility Aware Traffic Modeling for Wireless Sensor Networks," to appear in IEEE Globecom, 2009.

41.   J.S. Baras and P. Hovareshti, "Efficient and Robust Communication Topologies for Distributed Decision Making in Networked Systems", to appear in Proc. 48th IEEE Conference on Decision and Control, Shanghai, China, December 16-18, 2009.

42.   M. Anand and P. R. Kumar, "On approximating Gaussian relay networks by deterministic networks." To appear in Information Theory Workshop (ITW), Taormina, Sicily, October 11-16, 2009.

43.   T. He, L. Tong, and A. Swami, “On the maximum throughput of clandestine sensor networks,” to appear in Proc. 2009 IEEE Intl. Conf. Military Communications (MILCOM), Oct., 2009.

44.   P. Venkitasubramiam and L. Tong, “Anonymous networking with localized eavesdroppers: A game-theoretic approach,” to appear in Proc. 2009 IEEE Intl. Conf. Military Communications (MILCOM), Oct., 2009.

 

 

Manuscripts Submitted

  1. Fredrick John Berchmans, Indika Kahanda, Jennifer Neville, and Ramana Rao Kompella, “Time-Based Sampling of Social Network Activity Graphs,” submitted.
  2. Bowei Xi, Hui Chen, William S. Cleveland, and Thomas Telkamp, “Statistical Analysis and Modeling of Internet VoIP Traffic for Network Engineering,” submitted.
  3. Long B. Le, Eytan Modiano, Ness Shroff, “Optimal Control of Wireless Networks with Finite Buffers,” IEEE Infocom 2010, submitted.
  4. Pu Wang and Ian F. Akyildiz, "Spatial Correlation and Mobility Aware Traffic Modeling for Wireless Sensor Networks," submitted for journal publication.
  5. Ray K. Lam and P. R. Kumar, "Dynamic Channel Reservation to Enhance Channel Access by Exploiting Structure of Vehicular Networks." Submitted to IEEE Network Special Issue on "Advances in Vehicular Communications Networks," Submitted July 15, 2009.
  6. Yan Gao, Zheng Zeng and P. R. Kumar, "Joint Random Access and Power Selection for Maximal Throughput in Wireless Networks," Submitted to Proceedings of Infocom 2010, March 15-19, 2010, San Diego, CA.
  7. I-Hong Hou and P. R. Kumar, "Scheduling Heterogeneous Real-Time Traffic over Fading Wireless Channels," Submitted to Proceedings of Infocom 2010, March 15-19, 2010, San Diego, CA.
  8. I-Hong Hou and P. R. Kumar, "Utility Maximization for Delay Constrained QoS in Wireless," Submitted to Proceedings of Infocom 2010, March 15-19, 2010, San Diego, CA.
  9. Hemant Kowshik and P. R. Kumar, "Optimal strategies for computing symmetric Boolean functions on tree networks," Submitted to Proceedings of Infocom 2010, March 15-19, 2010, San Diego, CA.
  10. Anna Pantelidou and Anthony Ephremides, "A Cross-Layer View of Optimal Scheduling," submitted.
  11. Anna Pantelidou and Anthony Ephremides, "Minimum-length scheduling for multicast traffic under channel uncertainty," submitted to Globecom, 2009.
  12. Anna Pantelidou and Anthony Ephremides, "Wireless multicast optimization: A cross-layer approach," submitted.
  13. Beiyu Rong, Ioannis Krikidis, and Anthony Ephremides, "Network-level Cooperation with Enhancements Based on the Physical Layer," submitted to Allerton, 2009.
  14. Anna Pantelidou and Anthony Ephremides, "Minimum-length Scheduling and Rate Control for Time-varying Wireless Networks," submitted to Milcom, 2009.
  15. Anna Pantelidou and Anthony Ephremides "Minimum-length scheduling and rate control in wireless networks: A shortest path approach," submitted.
  16. Randy Cogill, Brooke Shrader and Anthony Ephremides, "Stable Throughput for Multicast with Random Linear Coding"
  17. K.K. Somasundaram, J. S. Baras, V. Tabatabaee and K. Jain, "Distributed Pruning Methods for Stable Topology Information Dissemination in Ad Hoc Networks", submitted.
  18. K. K. Somasundaram, J.S. Baras, "Semiring Pruning for Information Dissemination in Mobile Ad Hoc Networks", submitted.
  19. Laourine, S. Chen, and L. Tong, “Queuing Analysis in Multichannel Cognitive Spectrum Access: A Large Deviation Approach,” submitted to IEEE INFOCOM 2010.
  20. Agaskar, L. Tong, and T. He, “Distributed detection of multi-hop information flows with fusion capacity constraints,” submitted to IEEE Trans. Signal Processing, May, 2009.
  21. G. Sharma, C. Joo, N. B. Shroff, and R. R. Mazumdar, "Joint Congestion Control and Distributed Scheduling for Throughput Guarantees in Wireless Networks," submitted to ACM Transactions on Modeling and Computer Simulation.
  22. G. Sharma, C. Joo, N. B. Shroff, and R. R. Mazumdar, "On the Complexity of Scheduling in Wireless Networks," submitted to IEEE/ACM Transactions on Networking.
  23. Changhee Joo, Jin-Ghoo Choi, and Ness B. Shroff, "Delay Performance of Scheduling with Data Aggregation in Wireless Sensor Networks," submitted to IEEE INFOCOM'10.
  24. Dajun Qian, Dong Zheng, Junshan Zhang, and Ness Shroff, "CSMA-Based Distributed Scheduling in Multi-hop MIMO Networks under SINR Model," submitted to IEEE INFOCOM'10.
  25. J. Tan and N. B. Shroff, "Transition from Heavy to Light Tails in Retransmission Durations," submitted to IEEE INFOCOM'10.

 

 

Acknowledgement

This work is supported by ARO MURI Award W911NF-08-1-0238.