Grant: Strategic Projects - Group

The last-mile Broadband Wireless Access (BWA) is perhaps the most important development in wireless industry over the next decade. Wireless Mesh Networks (WMN) has attracted significant attention in wireless industry as a cost effective technology for BWA. In WMN each user node operates not only as a host but also as a relay where user packets are forwarded to and from an Internet-connected gateway. For this reason, most of the traffic is with the gateway, and consequently, the overall network capacity of WMN decreases rapidly as node density increases. Recently, it has been demonstrated that multiple antennas can be used to simultaneously transmit signals to several mobile users. This technique has created tremendous excitement among the research community, since it increases the effective spectral efficiency of the underlying wireless network in proportion to the number of transmit antennas. The main objective of the proposed research is to find methods for such spatial multiplexing of users to overcome the traffic bottleneck in WMN. The nature of complimentary expertise of the research team and access to a unique infrastructure will nurture a fertile research environment to develop effective solutions for WMN beyond the traditional designs, resulting in breakthrough knowledge in this emerging technology.On a global scale, the telecommunication industry in Canada is an area of tremendous strategic importance. The current initiative and the multi-disciplinary research collaborations it fosters, equipped with world class research facilities, will help the country to remain competitive internationally by generating know how with immediate transfer to Canadian industry. The proposed research will also train highly qualified and multi-disciplined personnel that will significantly enhance Canada's global competitiveness in telecommunications.