Ramanarayanan Viswanathan - US grants

University of Mississippi (UM) will be conducting the planning grant meeting for becoming a site of the Broadband Wireless Access and Applications (BWAC) I/UCRC. The UM site will conduct cooperative research in the area of broadband wireless technology involving faculty from electrical engineering and computer science. The planning workshop will be held at conference facility on the UM campus in Oxford, MS. From this workshop the UM site will identify the specific research areas that are of relevance to potential industry members and align the research projects according to industry member needs. UM site has research capabilities in the areas of cognitive radios, sensor localization, file transfer protocols for big data, wireless transmission of medical-images, wireless security, wireless monitoring of elderly in assisted-living facility, and smart grids. Four participating UM electrical engineering researchers have expertise in wireless communications, and specialization in one or more areas related to networks, coding theory, performance analysis in fading channels, emerging wireless standards and technology, decision fusion, statistical signal processing, and wireless security. Additional faculty expertise at UM exists in the areas of electromagnetic (EM) theory and antenna measurement. Faculty with relevant expertise from the Department of Computer Science and UM's industry-aligned Haley Barbour Center for Manufacturing Excellence (CME) will augment the research efforts of the UM BWAC I/UCRC site. The focus of the center is targeted to reach out to the technology and equipment manufacturers of wireless communications industries, defense electronics industries dealing with radars and communications systems, power companies and utilities, manufacturing and health-care industries within the geographical region of the University, and certain Mississippi state agencies. The collaboration with industry members in the Southeastern U.S. will provide co-op and internship opportunities for students opening networking opportunities and exposure to industrial-experts lectures.

The UM site is expected to provide graduate education and research opportunities for 10 students annually. Annually, 6 to 8 qualified undergraduate students will be encouraged to participate in the research projects pursued by the center and will be paid undergraduate stipends. The center will be marketed as an avenue for technology development thereby recruiting 20 to 30 additional undergraduate and 10 to 15 additional graduate students to the educational programs offered by the Electrical Engineering department at UM. By leveraging the minority graduate fellowships offered by NSF and the support of the Computer Engineering and Computer Science Departments at Jackson State University, which is primarily a baccalaureate level HBCU, the UM site expects to attract and graduate three to four underrepresented minority Ph.D. students over a five-year period. Summer workshops for middle school children will be conducted in collaboration with the UM Center for Science and Math Education to kindle their interest in STEM and wireless applications. Specialized courses and workshops for industries on big data transfer, wireless telemedicine, and cognitive radios will be developed and offered. These courses will be elective courses for the advanced undergraduates and graduate students.

This award will help create a new I/UCRC Site at University of Mississippi (UM) to join an existing IUCRC called BWAC (Broadband Wireless access and Applications Center) led by University of Arizona which started in July 2013. The UM site extends the scope of BWAC in the areas of computational electromagnetics (EM), antenna design and testing, and telecommunications. This Site will add two of the largest industries in the wireless space, Qualcomm and Intel, to the BWAC Industrial Advisory Board. The BWAC site will help recruit diverse and promising undergraduate and graduate students into electrical engineering undergraduate and graduate programs at UM. By engaging them directly in research on problems of actual interest to corporate partners, BWAC will help prepare these students to compete and be productive in corporate jobs the day they graduate.

This project will bring to bear UM research capabilities and real-world industry interest in areas that align with the focus of BWAC. The UM faculty have identified potential industry-oriented research in the areas of metamaterials for antenna cloaking, mmWave antennas, wireless signaling from embedded sensors for concussion management in college athletic sports, fountain codes for big data transfers, cognitive radios and radar systems. Other possible applications areas include, wireless connectivity for improved efficiency in factory, new wireless security algorithms, applications of wireless sensor networks, and telemedicine.

This project is Phase II of the Broadband Wireless Access Center (BWAC), a multi-university multi-industry organization composed of five universities (the University of Arizona, Virginia Tech, University of Notre Dame, University of Mississippi (UM), and the Catholic University of America) and 20+ affiliates from industry and government. In the past decade, wireless communications has made major technological leaps. Wireless connectivity is pervasive in society, leading to a shortage in wireless spectrum, network congestion, cyber-attacks and personal security issues. The mission of BWAC is to address these challenges and offer creative solutions.

This project will bring to bear UM research capabilities and real-world industry interest in several BWAC thrust areas. Center as a whole addresses research areas, including wireless spectrum sharing, security, and future milli-meter wave technology. UM research problems address spectrum sharing for heterogeneous wireless systems, network optimization to mitigate mutual interference in BLE (low energy Bluetooth) and WiFi systems, and 3 D printing of antennas and the design and fabrication of closely spaced antennas and antenna arrays using elliptical metasurface cloaking. Collaboration with industries in the Southeastern U.S. will provide for our students additional co-op and internship opportunities.

The results of this collaborative industry-university center will have a direct effect on public well-fare, enabling several applications such as remote health and broadband access in rural areas. The partnering universities will broaden their activities to include REU site programs, RET program, participation of under-represented minority students and faculty in research projects, and involvement of multidisciplinary projects. New curriculum at UM will have courses on Internet of Things (IoT) systems and cognitive radios. With its research, established partnerships, and long history of collaboration between its members, BWAC will likely create intellectual property and spin-off companies, leading to job growth.

The lead site, University of Arizona manages the central BWAC project website at www.bwac.arizona.edu. This website contains various information about the center including the overview of the center, mission, industry membership, projects, meeting announcements and technical data. Center proprietary documents are managed through a secure internal pages requiring access credentials. The data repository will be managed at the main website with links to the other university sites. The repository will contain technical papers, project descriptions, relevant software, testbed details, etc. The repository will be maintained during the project and for an additional five years beyond its termination.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.