• Lingjia Liu, ECE at VT: PI in the Leading Institution
• Robert Calderbank, ECE/CS at Duke: PI in the Collaborative Institution
• Yuejie Chi, ECE at CMU: PI in the Collaborative Institution
• Shadab Mahboob, ECE at VT: PhD student
• Beyza Dabak, ECE at Duke: PhD student
• Shicong Cen, ECE at CMU: PhD Student

• Santhosh Kumar Vanaparthy
• Jan Schreck
• Bin Li
• Zhu Zhou
• Jerry Syder

The explosive growth of mobile data traffic is in part a response to the proliferation of mobile access services in recent years. However, not all mobile users are able to enjoy stable and reliable broadband connections due to limited network capacities and limited coverage areas. Therefore, in next generation (NextG) mobile broadband networks it is necessary to integrate terrestrial and non-terrestrial networks to democratize wireless access, by providing seamless wireless coverage and supporting heterogeneous service requirements. To meet this goal, this project will develop the fundamental research necessary to integrate and operate terrestrial and non-terrestrial networks, termed Ground and Air Integrated Networks (GAINs). The research project is highly interdisciplinary at the interface of machine learning and wireless networks, providing graduate and undergraduate students with the skills needed to thrive in either community, as well as to bridge them either in academia or in industry. Software and hardware testbeds will provide proof of concept demonstrations for academic, industry and government partners.

The overarching objective of this research program is to develop fundamental enabling communication and computing technologies for resilient and intelligent Ground and Air Integrated Networks (GAINs) based on waveform design, real-time machine learning, resource scheduling, distributed computing and learning. This research program makes the sparse representation of the propagation environment visible to machine learning algorithms by designing signals and controlling networks in the delay-Doppler domain, rather than the time-frequency domain. The research program is streamlined into four interconnected research thrusts: 1) Waveform design to enable machine learning; 2) multi-agent reinforcement learning-enabled resilient scheduling for terrestrial networks; 3) distributed and resilient computing in GAINs; and 4) proof-of-concept development and system evaluation. A new suite of distributed and resilient machine learning algorithms that are communication-efficient and heterogeneity-aware will be tailored to information processing in GAINs at the speed of the next generation (NextG) networks.

The following thrusts are organized to address the above mentioned research components:

• Thrust 1: Waveform Design to Enable Machine Learning —- Viewing Channels from the Delay-Doppler Domain
• Thrust 2: Multi-Agent Reinforcement Learning-Enabled Resilient Scheduling for TNs —- Reduced Scheduling Complexity with Inaccurate Input Information
• Thrust 3: Distributed and Resilient Computing in GAINs —- Focus on Heterogeneity and Decentralized Nature

Designing waveforms in a different domain (e.g., the delay-Doppler domain) creates a channel that only changes at the speed of the local propagation environment, enabling detection, estimation and learning at the speed of NextG, and migration of MIMO scheduling to the cloud. Reservoir computing-based real-time machine learning tools will be coupled with new waveform design to enable receive processing at the speed of NextG. Novel multi-agent reinforcement learning-based centralized scheduling strategies will be introduced to enable low-complexity and resilient resource allocation in the delay-Doppler domain. A new suite of distributed and resilient machine learning algorithms that are communication-efficient and heterogeneity-aware will be tailored to information processing in GAINs.

• PI Liu, WiOPT Workshop on the Machine Learning in Wireless Communication Networks (WMLC), Real-Time Machine Learning for MIMO-OFDM: Symbol Detection Using Reservoir Computing, September 2022
• PI Liu, 4th Buffalo Day for 5G and Wireless Internet of Things, Real-Time Machine Learning for MIMO-OFDM: Symbol Detection Using Reservoir Computing, November 2022
• PI Calderbank, NextG Alliance, Online Seminar: Learning in the Delay Doppler Domain, September 2022
• PI Calderbank, USC Viterbi School of Engineering, The Viterbi Lecture: Learning to Communicate, March 2023
• PI Calderbank, University of Arizona: Learning to Communicate, March 2023
• PI Calderbank, Apple Online Seminar: Learning to Communicate, April 2023
• PI Calderbank, White House 6G Wireless Forum at the National Science Foundation: Panelist, Federal Funding Panel (moderated by Margaret Martonosi) with Peter Vetter (President, Bell Labs Core Research)
• PI Calderbank, UCLA: Learning to Communicate, May 2023
• PI Calderbank, Nokia Bell Labs, Online Seminar: Learning to Communicate, May 2023
• PI Calderbank, Middle East Technical University (METU) Online Seminar: Learning to Communicate, May 2023
• PI Chi, CVPR Workshop on Federated Learning for Computer Vision (FedVision): Coping with Heterogeneity and Privacy in Communication-Efficient Federated Optimization, June 2022
• PI Chi, Lehigh University: Coping with Heterogeneity and Privacy in Communication-Efficient Federated Optimization, October 2022
• PI Chi, Cornell University: Multi-agent Reinforcement Learning: Statistical and Optimization Perspectives, November 2022
• PI Chi, IEEE International Conference on Acoustics, Speech and Signal Processing (ICASSP) Tutorial: Advances in Federated Optimization: Efficiency, Resiliency, and Privacy, June 2023

1. S. Cen, F. Chen, and Y. Chi, “Independent Natural Policy Gradient Methods for Potential Games: Finite-time Global Convergence with Entropy Regularization” IEEE Conference on Decision and Control (CDC) , 2022
2. W. Zhao, S. Cen, B. Huang, Y. Chen, J. D. Lee, and Y. Chi, “Policy Mirror Descent for Regularized Reinforcement Learning: A Generalized Framework with Linear Convergence” SIAM Journal on Optimization , v.33 , 2023
3. Z. Li, H. Zhao, B. Li, and Y. Chi, “SoteriaFL: A Unified Framework for Private Federated Learning with Communication Compression” Advances in neural information processing systems, 2022
4. H. Zhao, B. Li, Z. Li, P. Richtarik, and Y. Chi, “BEER: Fast O(1/T) Rate for Decentralized Nonconvex Optimization with Communication Compression” Advances in neural information processing systems, 2022
5. R. Ao, S. Cen, and Y. Chi, “Asynchronous Gradient Play in Zero-Sum Multi-agent Games” International Conference on Learning Representations (ICLR), 2023
6. S. Cen, Y. Chi, S. Du, and L. Xiao, “Faster Last-iterate Convergence of Policy Optimization in Zero-Sum Markov Games” International Conference on Learning Representations (ICLR), 2023
7. S. Mahboob and L. Liu, “Revolutionizing Future Connectivity: A Contemporary Survey on AI-Empowered Satellite-Based Non-Terrestrial Networks in 6G,” in IEEE Communications Surveys & Tutorials, vol. 26, no. 2, pp. 1279-1321, Secondquarter 2024