2010 IEEE International Conference on Wireless Communications, Networking and Information Security (WCNIS2010)

Network Coding and Applications to Wireless Communications, Networking and Information Security
S.-Y. Robert Li
The Chinese University of Hong Kong

This is an expository talk on network coding (NC), a paradigm shift in the mode of data transport from the traditional store-and-forward. The applications of NC include wireless networks, multicast, peer-to-peer communications, sensor networks, personal communications, information security, etc. Theorem of Linear NC guarantees the best possible throughput. Linearity in coding/decoding makes the hardware/software NC implementation feasibly fast for practical applications. The wide applicability of NC has generated interest in multi-disciplinary research among computer science, information/coding theory, matrix theory, networking, operations research, and switching.

Bio:
Professor Bob Li received the BSc degree in math from National Taiwan U in 1970 and the PhD degree in math from UC Berkeley in 1974. He taught applied math at M.I.T. in 1974-76 and math/statistics/CS at UI Chicago in 1976-79. After working on switching systems and theoretic research at Bell Labs/Bellcore for a decade, he became a Chair Professor at The Chinese U of Hong Kong in 1989.
Bob Li is a cofounder of the theory of network coding. The Li-Yeung-Cai paper “Linear Network Coding” won the IEEE Information Theory Society Paper Award of Year 2005. His book “Algebraic Switching Theory and Broadband Applications” (Academic Press, 2001) establishes switching theory as a new branch of applied algebra. The first-generation “algebraic switching fabric” technology has been developed and adopted by the “Metro Switch” project of Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI) in 2004. His “martingale of patterns” (Annals of Probability, 1980) engenders an active research area with applications to genetics and communications. He also holds 31 US patents and has published in a wide spectrum of research journals.
Bob Li has held various honorary professorships at Beijing U of Posts and Telecom, Harbin Engineering U, National Tsing Hua U, Peking U, and Xidian U. He also serves as the “111 Great Master of Science” for a base of the IGAT Program of Ministry of Education, China. He was the featured scientist of Scientific American in the Chinese 7/2007 issue.

Based on some of his work, a talk series “A Dialogue between Mathematics and Engineering” is being composed. From a pointer at his homepage: http://www.ie.cuhk.edu.hk/bobli, six sets of lecture notes in this series can be downloaded with more to come. The first set is closely related to today’s talk.

Xiang-Gen Xia
IEEE Fellow
Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Delaware, Newark, DE 19716, USA; and Chonbuk National University, Jeonju, South Korea

Modulation and code design for multiple antennas, namely space-time coding, has been studied extensively over the past decade. Some of the designs have been successfully used in current wireless communication systems. An important difference between single and multiple antenna modulations is the demodulation complexity. For a high bandwidth efficiency space-time modulation/coding, its maximum likelihood (ML) demodulation/decoding may be prohibitively high. Unfortunately, most of the existing space-time codes/modulations are designed based on the ML decoding and they perform well when ML decoding is used but may not perform well otherwise, which may be a problem in practical applications. In this talk, we first briefly review some of the well known space-time codes/modulations. We then propose space-time code/modulation designs based on low complexity receivers, such as linear receivers and partial interference cancellation (PIC) group decoding/demodulation.

Bio:
Xiang-Gen Xia received his B.S. degree in mathematics from Nanjing Normal University, Nanjing, China, and his M.S. degree in mathematics from Nankai University, Tianjin, China, and his Ph.D. degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of Southern California, Los Angeles, in 1983, 1986, and 1992, respectively. He was a Senior/Research Staff Member at Hughes Research Laboratories, Malibu, California, during 1995-1996. In September 1996, he joined the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Delaware, Newark, Delaware, where he is the Charles Black Evans Professor. He was a Visiting Professor at the Chinese University of Hong Kong during 2002-2003, where he is an Adjunct Professor, and he is Chair Professor (visiting) with WCU Program at Chonbuk National University, South Korea from 2009 to 2013. His current research interests include space-time coding, MIMO and OFDM systems, digital signal processing, and SAR and ISAR imaging. Dr. Xia has over 200 refereed journal articles published and accepted, and 7 U.S. patents awarded and is the author of the book Modulated Coding for Intersymbol Interference Channels (New York, Marcel Dekker, 2000). Dr. Xia received the National Science Foundation (NSF) Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Program Award in 1997, the Office of Naval Research (ONR) Young Investigator Award in 1998, and the Outstanding Overseas Young Investigator Award from the National Nature Science Foundation of China in 2001. He also received the Outstanding Junior Faculty Award of the Engineering School of the University of Delaware in 2001. He is currently an Associate Editor of the IEEE Transactions on Wireless Communications, IEEE Transactions on Signal Processing, Signal Processing (EURASIP), and the Journal of Communications and Networks (JCN). He was a guest editor of Space-Time Coding and Its Applications in the EURASIP Journal of Applied Signal Processing in 2002. He served as an Associate Editor of the IEEE Transactions on Signal Processing during 1996 to 2003, the IEEE Transactions on Mobile Computing during 2001 to 2004, IEEE Transactions on Vehicular Technology during 2005 to 2008, the IEEE Signal Processing Letters during 2003 to 2007, and the EURASIP Journal of Applied Signal Processing during 2001 to 2004. Dr. Xia is Technical Program Chair of the Signal Processing Symp., Globecom 2007 in Washington D.C. and the General Co-Chair of ICASSP 2005 in Philadelphia. He is a Fellow of IEEE.

Lizhong Zheng
Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA

Classical information theory focuses on point-to-point communications over static channels, and faces difficulties in understanding multi-user networks, especially in dynamic situations. We discuss a new geometric view of information transmissions, in which a structure is established in describing geometrically the relation among high dimensional probability distributions. With this approach, we put forward a new way to understand how the receiver knowledge and the information about the data messages evolve within a network. We describe how to use this new technical tool to tackle some classical network information theory problems.

Bio:
Lizhong Zheng received the B.S and M.S. degrees, in 1994 and 1997 respectively, from the Department of Electronic Engineering, Tsinghua University, China, and the Ph.D. degree, in 2002, from the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences, University of California, Berkeley. Since 2002, he has been working in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences and the Laboratory of Information and Decision Systems at MassachusettsInstitute of Technology, where he is currently the Finne associate professor. His research interests include information theory, wireless communications and wireless networks. He received Eli Jury award from UC Berkeley in 2002, IEEE Information Theory Society Paper Award in 2003, NSF CAREER award in 2004, AFOSR YIP award in 2007. He is currently an associate editor for IEEE Transactions on Information Theory.