Focus Projects represent specific research, education or technology initiatives, usually carried out for a period of about three years each depending on the external goals and the nature of funding. Representative focus projects include:

ORBIT - Wireless Network Testbed

This project was started in 2003 with a major grant from the NSF Networking Research Testbeds (NRT) program. The goal is to develop a large-scale wireless network testbed to facilitate a broad range of experimental research on next-generation protocols and application concepts. The ORBIT (Open Access Research Testbed for Next-Generation Wireless Networks) system consists of an indoor "radio grid emulator" and an outdoor "field trial system" to be used for different stages of protocol design, evaluation and testing. A 64-node radio grid emulator is currently operational, having been released for an initial set of external users in Nov 2004.A 400-node version will be released in October 2005.

Securing Wireless Applications and Networks

This project seeks to develop solutions for privacy and security in future wireless networks. Resource-efficient security protocols suitable for providing data confidentiality, authentication, and privacy in cellular (3G), ad-hoc, and WLAN networks are being investigated. Additionally, protocols are being developed to provide ad-hoc networks the capability of self-repair in the presence of faults and adversarial attacks, such as denial of service and RF jamming. Researchers are working on a project on Privacy in Sensor Networks, funded by the NSF that started in 2004. A new NSF project on Location Privacy is set to begin in September 2005.

Cognitive Radios for Open Access to Spectrum

This project was started in Fall 2004, in collaboration with Lucent Technologies and seeks to support open access to spectrum using cognitive radio algorithms and architectures. Initial work on the major research issues considered here include: scheduling algorithms for links over shared spectrum, pricing and spectrum mediation, interference avoidance mechanisms and discovery protocols for cognitive radios.

Cognitive Radio Platform and Experimental Protocol Stacks

There are two NSF projects being conducted at WINLAB aimed at building both a cognitive radio hardware platform and experimental protocol stacks for cognitive radio networks.  The Cognitive Radio hardware project started in September 2004, collaborating with Bell Labs, Lucent Technologies and Georgia Tech. This project is aimed at the development of a "network-centric" cognitive radio platform with a tri-band agile RF front-end, fast spectrum scanning, a flexible, variable bandwidth software-defined OFDM radio, a packet engine for protocol processing and an embedded CPU for spectrum policy and control. In September 2006, the NSF CogNet project started and it is aimed at building an experimental protocol stack for Cognitive Radio networks for integration with the future Internet.  In this project, the experimental platform is going to be designed for spectrum agility by fast spectrum scanning over multiple frequency bands, and the ability to change frequency on a per-packet basis.  Protocol stacks for cognitive radio networks are also to be designed, including spectrum etiquette protocol, dynamic spectrum policy, a fully programmable MAC layer and cross-layer protocol implementation capabilities based on integrated PHY, MAC, network algorithms.  Multi-hop ad hoc networks scenarios involving collaborative packet forwarding among peer groups are going to be studied.

Vehicular Networking

This project was started in summer 2006 with grants from the NSF and Industry. The goal is to develop networking protocols for timely, reliable and trustworthy communication in automotive ad hoc networks. Topics under consideration include location-based approaches to vehicular networking, effects of high node mobility and density on vehicular safety messaging as well as privacy and security.

Ad-Hoc and 4G Mobile Network Protocols

This project is aimed at design and prototyping of new network protocols and software for future next-generation wireless systems ("4G"). Topics under consideration include: 3G/WLAN interworking, open-architecture wireless networks, data caching and content delivery for mobile users, protocols for self organization, routing in hierarchical ad-hoc networks and unlicensed band spectrum etiquette.

Multimodal Sensor-on-Silicon (MUSE)

The objective of this project is to develop next-generation multimodal wireless sensors based on recent innovations in zinc-oxide (ZnO) and MEMS devices integrated with wireless modem and networking technologies. The program also includes early development of biomedical and other sensor applications in collaboration with UMDNJ and regional companies.

GENI Projects

WINLAB is one of the key participants in NSF’s “GENI” (Global Environment for Network Innovation) initiative which started in 2005. The proposed GENI project (to be funded under the “MREFC” major research infrastructure program at NSF) aims to develop a global-scale programmable experimental network infrastructure for research on future Internet architecture, protocols and software. WINLAB’s work has focused on wireless aspects of GENI, both in terms of identifying research challenges and developing preliminary designs for programmable wireless network deployments in GENI.