Excellence in Research: Research Capacity and Partnerships Building in Next-Generation Communication Ecosystems with Vertical Intelligence (supported by NSF) 

Project Number: ECCS-2302469
Duration: Sep. 2023 – Aug. 2026
PI: Xiangfang (Lindsey) Li, Ph.D.


Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering
Roy G. Perry College of Engineering
Prairie View A&M University
Prairie View, TX 77446

Project Summary:

The evolution of next-generation wireless communications known as the sixth generation (6G) will enable not only super-fast and ultra-reliable communications services but also new use cases and intelligence to benefit society and redefine how we live and work. In this project, a team of researchers and educators from two HBCUs, Prairie View A&M University and Texas Southern University, collaborating with the team of the University of Houston, propose a comprehensive plan to enhance research capacity in the next-generation communications ecosystem with vertical intelligence and to build strong partnerships. The proposed project will leverage the research capabilities and existing collaborations among the three participating institutions, and greatly enhance the research capacity and educational excellence at all institutions. Partnerships with industry and government will engage HBCUs in future critical 6G and beyond infrastructure and maintain diversity in the workforce. The proposed research will explore theoretical advancement as well as experimental design. If successful, the proposed research will help accelerate the development and commercialization of promising technologies for 6G and ensure continued U.S. leadership in the telecommunications industry. The education goals include enabling broad participation of underrepresented minorities in cutting-edge research, building a pipeline to attract and retain them to pursue careers in STEM, and training future workforce in critical areas especially 6G for the nation.

The proposed research will target the integration of 6G terrestrial cellular networks with aerial access networks (AANs) with many satellites, high altitude platforms (HAPs), and unmanned air vehicles (UAVs) through integrated sensing, communications, and computing to gain vertical intelligence in the next-generation communications ecosystem. Three research thrusts are proposed: 1) Novel dynamic, stochastic, and distributed optimization methods will be investigated for robust resource planning and allocation and mobility management; 2) A hierarchical sensing architecture will be designed to provide mutual benefits between communications and sensing; 3) Efficient privacy-preserving edge computing and computation offloading strategies will be studied to jointly optimize communications and computing. The proposed framework and strategies will not only optimize resource usage but also integrate sensing, communications, and computing seamlessly while protecting user privacy and data security. The proposed methods will be validated through extensive simulations and experiments using USRPs and the NSF POWDER, COSMOS, and AERPAW testbeds. This project will significantly enhance research, education, and outreach in all participating institutions and enable broad participation of underrepresented minorities in advanced research, and provide the much-needed diversity of the next-generation workforce in 6G and beyond.

News:

  • Dr. Li is the recipient of the “Outstanding Full-Time Teaching Award,”  “A Journey to Eminence,” Prairie View A&M University’s 2024 Faculty and Staff Conference, August 29, 2024.
  • Dr. Ahmed is the recipient of the “Faculty Service Award,” “A Journey to Eminence,” Prairie View A&M University’s 2024 Faculty and Staff Conference, August 29, 2024.
  • The team including the PIs and students from the three collaborating institutions (PVAMU, UH, and TSU) had a very successful project kickoff meeting at Texas Southern University on August 11, 2023.
  • Co-PI, Zhu Han, Moores Professor in the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department of the University of Houston’s Cullen College of Engineering, became an Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) Fellow.

Results:

I. Publications

This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant ECCS-2302469.
Any opinions, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.

Books:

  • Lingyang Song, Zhu Han, Boya Di, and Hongliang Zhang, Aerial Access Networks: Integration of UAVs, HAPs, and Satellites, Cambridge University Press, UK, 2023.

Journal papers:

  • T. Akinola, X. Li, R. Wilkins, P. Obiomon, and L. Qian (2024). “Robust Inverse Quantum Fourier Transform Inspired Algorithm for Unsupervised Image Segmentation,” in IEEE Access, Vol 12, pp.  99029-99044, 2024. DOI: 10.1109/ACCESS.2024.3429413.
  • Kai-Chu Tsai, Lei Fan, Ricardo Lent, Li-Chun Wang, and Zhu Han, “Distributionally Robust Optimal Routing for Integrated Satellite-Terrestrial Networks Under Uncertainty,” to appear IEEE Transaction on Communications.

Conference papers:

  • W. Ni, Y. Zhang and W. Li, “Optimal Task Admission Control of Private Cloud Data Centers With Limited Resources,” 2024 IEEE 14th Annual Computing and Communication Workshop and Conference (CCWC), Las Vegas, NV, USA, 2024, pp. 0167-0172, doi: 10.1109/CCWC60891.2024.10427675.
  • A. Ahmed and B. Nyarko (2024). “Smart-Watcher: An AI-Powered IoT Monitoring System for Small-Medium Scale Premises,” 2024 Workshop on Computing, Networking and Communications (CNC).
  • A. Ahmed and J. Ahmed (2024). “An Image-based Plant Weed Detector using Machine Learning,” 2024 Workshop on Computing, Networking and Communications (CNC).
  • Faheem Quazi, Angeles Vazquez-Castro, Dusit Niyato, Shiwen Mao, and Zhu Han, “Building Delay-Tolerant Digital Twins for Cislunar Operations using Age of Synchronization,” IEEE International Conference on Communications (ICC) Workshop on Cooperative Communications and Computations in Space-Air-Ground-Sea Integrated Networks, Denver, CO, June 2024.

Invited talks and presentations:

  • “Reconfigurable Holographic Surfaces: A New Paradigm to Ultra-Massive MIMO for 6G,” IEEE ICC 2024.
  • “Reconfigurable Holographic Surfaces: A New Paradigm to Ultra-Massive MIMO,” IEEE WCNC 2024.
  • “Federated Analytics: A Bridge Between Data Science and Machine Learning”, IEEE CCNC 2024.
  • “Holographic Radio: A New Paradigm for Communication and Sensing in 6G,” IEEE Globecom 2023.
  • “Holographic Radio: A New Paradigm for Future Ultra-Massive MIMO,” IEEE PIMRC 2023.

Student Thesis/Dissertations:

  • Kai-Chu Tsai,  “Satellite-Terrestrial Integration under Uncertainty using Machine Learning and Distributionally Robust Optimization,” PhD dissertation, 2024.

II. Student Training:

  • Two high school students visit UH research lab to conduct researches.

III. Source codes and software tools:

1) Source codes:

  • Coming soon.

2) Software tools:

Collaborators:

Contact information:

Office: NENR Building Room 336
Phone: (936) 261-9918
Fax: (936) 261-9930
E-mail: xili@pvamu.edu

Last Modified: August 2024