Wireless communications lie today at the very heart of many key applications that strongly impact most aspects of our daily life. Fundamental paradigm shifts are yet expected due to ongoing developments in wireless. These paradigm shifts shall allow communication infrastructure to self-organize seamlessly for optimized spectrum-, cost- and energy-efficiency. In the new realm of the internet of things (IoT), they shall also enable communication links to take place not only between persons, but also between smart machines (such as home appliances), devices and vehicles (M2M/D2D/V2V), connections due to reach tens of billions by 2020. These paradigm shifts are poised to enable truly smart communications in the future. Parallel developments in wireless due to successful integration with new sensor and radar systems have recently sprang the emergence of new smart monitoring applications in health, environment, safety, security, etc. And cross-fertilization between smart communications and monitoring allow wireless to stand today as a crucial enabler of future applications in smart management of power grids, vehicles, homes, cities, etc. Due to their increasing pervasiveness, these three smart applications of wireless (communications, monitoring and management) are deeply shaping today the 21st-century digital economy. The short-term objective of this research program is to tackle the transformative challenges smart communications will shortly face at the radio access level in its current shift from installation (communications for communications) to deployment (communications to the service of new applications). In order to meet the expected data crunch, we seek to devise novel radio access strategies that enable truly smart communications by rethinking some of the key technical drivers foreseen today within the context of HetNet virtualization at both PHY and MAC layers. Virtualization is a fundamental paradigm shift that is pledged to push these strategies to a full-fledged scale of flexibility, manageability and efficiency in cost, spectrum and power. By achieving this immediate goal, the long-term objective of this program is to enable pervasive and smart applications of wireless in the 21st century digital economy.

Charles Despins, François Gagnon, Ferhat Khendek, Fabrice Labeau, Long Le, Tho Le-Ngoc, Martin Maier, Serioja Tatu, Ke Wu

Wireless networks and systems (WNS) lie today at the very heart of many key applications that strongly impact most aspects of our daily-life and promise today fundamental paradigm shifts. These paradigm shifts shall allow communication infrastructure to self-organize seamlessly for optimized spectrum-, cost- and energy-efficiency. They shall also enable communication links to take place not only between persons, but also between machines, devices and vehicles; connections due to reach tens of billions by 2020. These paradigm shifts are poised to enable in the near future truly "smart communications". Parallel developments in WNS due to their successful integration with new sensor and radar systems have recently sprang the emergence of new "smart monitoring" applications in health, environment, safety, security, manufacturing, metrology, etc. And cross-fertilization between smart communications and monitoring is giving birth to emerging applications in "smart management" of power grids, homes, offices, hospitals, cities, vehicles, etc. Due to their increasing pervasiveness, these three smart applications of WNS technologies stand today as some of the key enablers of the 21st-century digital economy. In close collaboration between the applicants and their industrial partners, this program was carefully developed to offer added-value experience to students, but also to supervisors and partners, through the following well thought out program components that provide trainees with invaluable job-readiness skills specifically needed by the wireless sector: more industry-oriented research projects that address interdisciplinary wireless integration challenges in the digital economy, industry-hosted internships that offer hands-on experience to trainees, specialized courses, seminars, panel discussions with industrials, and an annual summer school. The program will fund 108 students and will train 210 in total over 6 years. This program shall make them better prepared and job ready to contribute faster to the growth, innovation and competitiveness of a very broad range of Canadian businesses.

François Gagnon, Tho Le-Ngoc, Yvon Savaria

Virtualization has been proposed as the basis for the next-generation networking paradigm, notably in the future Internet realm. By creating multiple logical networks on a single physical substrate, it offers increased flexibility, manageability and efficiency in terms of resource utilization and energy consumption. Being a decades-old concept in computer science, only recently did it evolve to encompass the creation of virtual networks (VNs) leading to virtual functions such as virtual routers, links, base stations, etc. However, literature on wireless access virtualization (WAV) is still scarce. Some recent major initiatives, despite going great lengths to extend virtualization to wireless networks in a top-down approach from higher to lower layers, remained relatively silent on how to enable WAV at both physical (PHY) and medium access control (MAC) layers! The goal of this project is precisely to pioneer and innovate in this ultimate and most challenging front by developing WAV enabling strategies (WAVES) at PHY and MAC layers in the future context of 5th-generation wireless networks. Challenging issues in WAV arising at these layers will be exacerbated in the envisioned presence of ultra-dense heterogeneous networks (HetNet) with multi-tier cells and multiple radio access technologies (multi-RAT). Owing to the support of Huawei and TELUS, we will advocate a bottom-up approach to develop innovative cost-effective and spectrum/power-efficient transceiver designs, resource allocation schemes, and hardware platform architectures that lay - at PHY and MAC layers - the founding grounds over which WAV could be enabled. In doing so, we will adopt novel energy-efficiency design metrics that address the most pressing economic, environmental and public health concerns arising today with the proliferation of wireless networks and devices: the reduction of carbon emissions and RF power exposure. Tremendous scientific, economic and social benefits are expected from this project by i) advancing science in crucial technical areas that enable WAV, ii) facilitating the advent of the next wireless networks revolution, iii) assisting environmental/public health policies, and iv) providing top-quality HQP training in a key ICT sector.

Sofiène Affes (professor, INRS-EMT), Victor Leung (Professor, University of British Columbia)

The recent widespread use of smart devices, wireless Internet, and video streaming has led to the dramatic growth of the mobile data traffic, which directly necessitates the development of the 5th Generation (5G) wireless networks. However, spatially distributed channel conditions and fragmented spectral resources, further combined with the multi-tier and heterogeneous network architecture in 5G, pose fundamental technical challenges for the design and deployment of 5G networks. The strategic objective of the proposed NSERC SPG project is to develop the essential communication and networking technologies for the next-generation of wireless networks that will meet all requirements on capacity and highly efficient use of radio resources in 5G. In particular, our proposed research, innovation and training activities will be focused on the following themes: a) Development of highly efficient, dynamic and 3-D (frequency-time-space domains) 5G communications technologies; b) Development of highly cooperative and intelligent cooperative communication schemes in effectively supporting the complex heterogeneous networks and devices in 5G; and c) Development of wireless network virtualization, operation and management technologies in achieving cost-effective 5G deployment. The anticipated research findings from the proposed strategic project have the potential of making ground-breaking impact and shaping the next generation of wireless technology and infrastructure. The combined research expertise from the university researchers will be complemented by the strong development capabilities of the industry partners. The direct benefits of the proposed project are the accelerated research innovation and knowledge transfer to the related industry partners involved in the project. This will result in significant long-term economic impact to the Canadian society.

Sofiène Affes (professor, INRS-EMT), Charles Despins, Paul Fortier, Chahé Nerguizian

The objective of the project is to use a network of intelligent wireless sensors consisting of robust nodes (in terms of communication and security link) in order to monitor continuously security and automation operations in an underground mining environment (structural mine health, proactive management before or after a disaster, communications between machines ...). The project aims to deploy a network of intelligent wireless sensors whose role would be to monitor the status of a mine in terms of structure and air quality in order to increase security. A sensor network is a wireless ad hoc network with a large number of nodes (micro-sensors) that are capable of collecting and transmitting environmental data autonomously. The position of these nodes does not need to be predetermined. They are usually randomly dispersed in a geographical area of the field of interest for the captured phenomena. Smart sensors are sensors that can communicate with each other, can merge data from other sensors and are robust in communications links. The goal is to identify, proactively, excessive presence of harmful or dangerous gases (methane, etc.) and the impermissible structural damage (vibration, etc.). To do this, sensors of vibration, temperature, humidity and chemicals are used. In addition, the complete sensor network will be monitored consistently to ensure functionality. The sensor array is also used for communication within the mine, in particular for machine to machine communications and between the mine and the surface (control centre). Communications links can also be used to remotely control various machines and automate operations in the mine.