Energy-Conscious Operation: Network Efficiency for Wireless Sustainability

Background

As radio communication infrastructures are moving beyond their fifth generation, they are becoming increasingly convoluted and heterogeneous in pursuit of accommodating a wider variety of demanding use cases. The many deployment-ready options and mechanisms, if not prioritized and optimized with respect to the underlying applications, threaten to degrade system efficiency by complicating the operations unnecessarily. Application of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) does, on the one hand, promise to improve system performance and satisfy dissimilar service requirements, but it also risks compromising the fundamental demand for system sustainability.

In this research project, we deeply explore the connection between information and energy in emerging intelligent wireless networks to reveal their fundamental limits, scaling laws, and tradeoffs. Our goal is to offer a novel perspective on the sustainable evolution of wireless communications technology to (i) reduce energy consumption and dissipation in large-scale semantics-aware systems, (ii) efficiently manage energy-performance tradeoffs in different time scales and applications, and (iii) optimize communication protocols subject to the communication environment uncertainty.

In sharp contrast to prior research on energy efficiency in wireless networks, we focus on a system-wide perspective considering system goals and various network deployment and management options, including network scale, dynamics, and computing capabilities.  The central research outcomes are comprehensive methodology, algorithms, system bounds, optimal policies, and predictions that will enable intelligent, reliable, in-time control in 5G and beyond wireless networks to achieve sustainable operation of dedicated goal-oriented intelligent systems. These outcomes are all novel, indicating a huge potential for scientific breakthroughs and for promoting scientific renewal, as well as technological innovation. The results of ECO-NEWS  are expected to support the development of truly sustainable ICT in the near future. Therefore, ECO-NEWS is well aligned with the UN Sustainable Development Goals.

Principal investigators

Assoc. Prof. Pedro Nardelli (LUT University)

Prof. Sergey Andreev (Tampere University)