Foundations of Implicit and Explicit Communication

Abstract

The objective of this research is to develop the theoretical foundations for understanding implicit and explicit communication within cyber-physical systems. The approach is two-fold: (a) developing new information-theoretic tools to

Reveal the essential nature of implicit communication in a manner analogous to (and compatible with) classical network information theory; (b) viewing the wireless ecosystem itself as a cyber-physical system in which spectrum is the physical substrate that is manipulated by heterogeneous interacting cyber-systems that must be certified to meet safety and performance objectives.

The key to understanding implicit communication is a conceptual breakthrough in attacking the unsolved 40-year-old Witsenhausen counterexample by using an approximate-optimality paradigm combined with new ideas from sphere-packing and cognitive radio channels. These techniques open up radically new mathematical

avenues to attack distributed-control problems that have long been considered fundamentally intractable. They guide the development of nonlinear control strategies that are provably orders-of-magnitude better than the best linear strategies. This has been enhanced by adding a further new bridge between linear network coding and implicit communication in decentralized linear control systems.

This research also reaches out to wireless policy: allowing the principled formulation of government regulations for next-generation networks. Cognitive radios represent an interesting test-case for understanding many issues relevant to the regulation of CPS systems more generally. They interact with each other and there is uncertainty. The regulator wants to achieve a certain overall objective but the individual systems might have their own interests. And the system has to be able to evolve.

Award ID: 0932410

  • CPS Domains
  • Design Automation Tools
  • Communication
  • Control
  • Systems Engineering
  • Wireless Sensing and Actuation
  • CPS Technologies
  • Education
  • Foundations
  • National CPS PI Meeting 2012
  • 2012
  • Academia
  • CPS PI MTG 12 Posters & Abstracts
Submitted by Anant Sahai on Fri, 10/05/2012 - 09:41