Michele Zorzi

Professor, University of Padova, Italy, and UC San Diego

February 13th, 2015, 11am-12pm, DBH 6011

Title:

Cognition-based networks: applying cognitive science to wireless networking

Abstract:

Several techniques for wireless networking, such as opportunistic spectrum access, or self-healing networks, may be seen as using a form of cognition, meaning that they mimic reasoning processes of intelligent beings. We propose to expand this cognition-based process by exploiting the parallel processing power of the infrastructure, so as to go beyond cognition as is meant by these approaches. We leverage novel approaches, taken from cognitive science and artificial intelligence, involving not only supervised but also unsupervised learning, and we envision their application to wireless systems. A recent example of application of this approach is in the context of video over wireless. The transmission of multimedia content, and its adaptation to the condition of the communication infrastructure, i.e., the wireless channel or the content delivery network, are envisioned as particularly critical steps for the development of latest generation mobile networks. For this scenario, we propose and evaluate a video classifier based on a Restricted Boltzmann Machine that tries to extract abstract features of videos from the analysis of the sizes of a few coded frames. These features can then be exploited by the communication network itself to optimize video transmission based on its content. As an additional example, currently in progress, we will also discuss how a cognition-based approach to context awareness may provide new opportunities for handover optimization in heterogeneous networks. Finally, we will also describe the testbed that we recently developed at the University of Padova for cognition-based research, which employs cheap commercial devices and can be easily replicated.

Speaker Bio:

Michele Zorzi is a Professor at the Department of Information Engineering of the University of Padova. Prior to his current appointment, he was employed at the Politecnico di Milano, the University of Ferrara and the University of California at San Diego, with which he still has an active collaboration. He received a PhD in Electrical Engineering from the University of Padova in 1994. Michele was the EiC of the IEEE Wireless Communications magazine in 2003-2005, the EiC of the IEEE Transactions on Communications in 2008-2011, and is currently the founding EiC of the new IEEE Transactions on Cognitive Communications and Networking. He has also served on the Editorial Boards of the top journals in his area of research and on the Organizing and Technical Program Committee for many international conferenced. He is an IEEE Fellow. His main research interests are in the area of wireless communications and networking, sensor networks and IoT, underwater communications and networks, cognitive networking, and energy-efficient protocol design.