Projects

Nebraska EPSCoR FIRST Award

Transforming Rural Last-Mile Wireless Connectivity with Reconfigurable Metasurfaces at Millimeter-Wave Frequencies

Funding Source: Nebraska EPSCoR funded by NSF Grant OIA-2044049.

Role: Principal Investigator.

Duration: Dec. 1, 2021 – Nov. 30, 2022.

Overview: Over the last few years, wireless data traffic has drastically increased due to a substantial growth that the world creates, shares, and consumes information. In contrast to the massive growth of the wireless broadband market in major cities, there has been an ever-deepening digital divide between the rural and urban areas, which has led to uneven economic growth and unbalanced educational resources. To bridge this gap, new solutions in both communications and computing are necessary. This project aims to design and develop metasurface-based reconfigurable transmit and reflect arrays that can effectively transmit wideband signals at millimeter wave (mmWave) frequencies, and aims to increase the coverage range and spectral efficiency for last-mile connectivity in rural areas. The proposed solution in this project is expected to bring wireless broadband connectivity to rural communities with a faster and more reliable Internet access.

Student(s) Supported:

• Vaishnavi Annabhemoju

Product(s):

• S. Nie, M. M. Lunar, G. Bai, Y. Ge, S. Pitla, C. E. Koksal, and M. C. Vuran, "mmWave on a Farm: Channel Modeling for Wireless Agricultural Networks at Broadband Millimeter-Wave Frequency", 2022 IEEE International Conference on Sensing, Communication, and Networking (SECON), pp. 1-9, to appear.

Directorate for Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE), National Science Foundation

CNS Core: Medium: Field-Nets: Field-to-Edge Connectivity for Joint Communication and Sensing in Next-Generation Intelligent Agricultural Networks

Funding Source: CNS-2212050.

Role: Co-Principal Investigator.

Duration: Oct. 1, 2022 – Sept. 30, 2025.

Abstract: Available here.