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This RINGS project has five objectives:

  1. Investigating air corridor design and analysis, led by Namuduri: In this task, air corridor design, rules of engagement in the air corridors and the requirements for V2V communications links for safe and secure unmanned air transportation will be investigated from a theoretical perspective. Such an analysis doesn’t exist in the literature yet.
  2. Investigating software-defined networking strategies for UAVs, led by Sun: In this task, we design an application layer protocol based on the software-defined UAV networks to enable a logic controller to efficiently manage and control physical layer behaviors/functions of the UAVs in unstable wireless networks. The application layer protocol is developed based on the existing CoAP Publish-Subscribe (Pub/Sub) protocol, and is compatible with the OpenFlow protocol.
  3. Investigating federated learning-based dynamic trajectory planning strategy, led Sun: In this task, we propose federated learning (FL) based online trajectory planning to dynamically adjust the trajectory of a UAV in the dynamic environment caused by random wind perturbations and non-cooperative moving obstacles. In the FL based online trajectory planning, each UAV determines its acceleration based on the state distribution function of the nearby UAVs, which is predicted via FL.
  4. Managing interference through frequency reuse planning, spectrum-sensing and agility, led by Jayaweera: In this task, we propose a frequency reuse framework for air corridors and investigate 3D cell shapes and sizes, and dynamic channel allocation approaches to maximize network performance. In the absence of base stations that are responsible for managing these cells-in-the-sky, spectrum sensing based channel-access protocols are proposed to ensure reliable and efficient air corridor traffic management. When machine learning and artificial intelligence techniques are used in designing these spectrum and traffic management planning protocols in aerial vehicle networks, the reliability, robustness and security of the system are also investigated.
  5. Designing of a phased-array antenna and beamforming for the directed wireless data telemetry using mm-wave bands, led by Mahbub: Beamforming between two UAVs can be difficult especially when narrow 3D beams are desired. We propose a novel adaptive mmWave 3D beamforming approach that couples traditional adaptive beamforming with side-information provided by the known trajectories. Once a link is established between two UAVs, we propose the nodes to adapt the beamforming angles based on the predicted state distribution function (described in Research Task 3). Under this task, the team is investigating highly compact millimeter wave antenna array designs for device to device communications.