Acquisition of COMET

Assistant Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Dr. Honggang Wang (PI) with other ECE faculty members, Dr. Dayalan P. Kasilingam (Co-PI), Dr. Liudong Xing (Co-PI), Dr. Howard Michel (Co-PI) and Dr. Yifei Li (Co-PI), received a new National Science Foundation (NSF) research grant to develop Cognitive RadiO Multimedia NEtwork Testbed for Multimedia Communication Research and Education. The award titled " MRI: Acquisition of COMET, A Cognitive RadiO Multimedia NEtwork Testbed for Multimedia Communication Research and Education" was awarded by the Major Research Instrumentation Program of NSF and is for two years from September 2014 through August 2016. The total award amount is $274K.

The proposed COMET platform in the project is a highly specialized research instrument which will be used to further scientific development of multimedia communication research and education. Using COMET, the UMassD team will develop cutting-edge protocols and algorithms for the efficient use of limited wireless spectrum in a variety of multidisciplinary multimedia applications to address the challenging multidimensional scientific and engineering problems associated with this field. These protocols and algorithms will be applied to a number of fundamental scientific and engineering questions in a wide range of wireless multimedia topics. Furthermore, the COMET platform will help develop methodology and techniques for efficient use of spectral resources and addressing critical issues related to energy, bandwidth, computing and reliability for wireless multimedia applications. The proposed COMET testbed will play a crucial role in training the next generation of engineers and scientists. Students will have the chance to gain experience with various aspects of multimedia communication and wireless networks.