Title
A Unified Theory of Random Access
Abstract
With the new wave of digital revolution, wireless communication networks are experiencing a radical paradigm shift from the conventional human-to-human (H2H) communications to machine-to-machine (M2M) communications. To facilitate the massive access of machine-type devices, random access is expected to play a crucial role in the next-generation M2M communications. Thanks to its distributed nature, random access has found wide applications to various wireless networks including 5G cellular networks and WiFi networks.
In stark contrast to the wide applications, the theory of random access is much less developed. Analytical models are often tailored for specific performance metrics or access protocols, where differences in modeling assumptions and definitions have led to inconsistent findings. Despite continuous attention for half a century, fundamental issues remain unresolved due to the lack of a unified theory. In this talk, I will start by reviewing the basic concepts of random access, and then introduce our recently proposed unified analytical framework for random access. I will conclude the talk by highlighting the challenges and opportunities for the distributed access design of next-generation communication networks.
Biographies
Dr. Lin Dai received the Ph.D. degree from Tsinghua University, China. She is now a full professor of Department of Electronic Engineering of City University of Hong Kong. She has broad interests in communications and networking theory, with special interests in wireless communications. Her recent research work focuses on modeling, performance analysis and optimal access design of next-generation mobile communication systems. She was a co-recipient of the Best Paper Award at the IEEE WCNC 2007 and the IEEE Marconi Prize Paper Award in 2009. She received The President’s Award of City University of Hong Kong in 2017.
