Makowski receives NSF grant for modeling wireless networks

Professor Armand Makowski (ECE/ISR) is the principal investigator for a three-year, $225,000 NSF grant for "Modeling Wireless Networks: Excursions in the Theory of Random Graphs."

Research will focus on three classes of random graph models: random connection graphs, random intersection graphs and a combination thereof known as Kryptographs. Both the models and research questions are driven by applications from wireless networking and sensor network security:

–Modeling one-hop connectivity in mobile ad-hoc networks;

–Modeling random key pre-distribution; and

–Achieving secure connectivity in wireless sensor networks via random key management.

Integrating geometric and non-geometric features will lead to new and challenging problems. The overall objective of this research is to develop the theoretical foundations to assess system performance and help dimension attending resources in wireless networks.

Technically, many of the questions of interest are asymptotic in nature (with the numbers of nodes becoming large) and take the following form:

–Zero-one laws for graph properties such as graph connectivty and the absence of isolated nodes;

–Poisson convergence results which help shed some light on possible phase transitions; and

–Approximations to deal with finite node situations.

The techniques are probabilistic in nature, with an important place given to the method of first and second moments and to the Stein-Chen method. Particular emphasis is given to exploring the sensitivity of the results with respect to model assumptions, e.g., distribution of node locations.

The research will contribute to the study of random graphs (both geometric and non-geometric varieties) through probabilistic techniques. In addition, more realistic models for one-hop connectivity in wireless networks will be developed and the behavior of large scale wireless networks will be enhanced.

September 17, 2007