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NSF and Partnerships

- Advancing NextG R&D

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Thyaga Nandagopal

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Division Director, TIP/ITE

National Science Foundation

National Science Foundation

• FY19 budget: $8.1B
• FY20 budget: $8.6B
• FY21 budget: $7.7B
• FY22 budget: $8.8B

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• 362,000 researchers, postdoctoral fellows, trainees, teachers, and students supported

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• 230+ Nobel Laureates supported

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• ~400 startups/small businesses funded each year

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NSF’s Vision - A Nation that is the global leader in research and innovation

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A�convergent NextG future

LEO/MEO/GEO

Satellites, HAPS,

Cellular, WiFi,

LoRA/NB-IoT

Rural, satellite/cellular integration,

diverse backhaul, Mobile Edge computing, remote sensing

• Foundational Research
• Core Programs (e.g. CISE/CNS, ENG/ECCS Core programs)
• Cross-Cutting Programs (e.g. SWIFT)
• One-to-one Partnerships (e.g., Intel, VMware)
• Multi-sector partnerships (e.g., RINGS, PAWR)
• Research Infrastructure
• Platforms for Advanced Wireless Research (PAWR)
• National Radio Dynamic Zone (DCL NSF 20-079)
• CISE Community Research Infrastructure (CCRI - nsf22509)
• Center-Scale Activities
• An NSF Spectrum Innovation Center: SpectrumX
• AI Institute for Future Edge Networks & Distributed Intelligence (AI-EDGE)
• AI Institute for Edge Computing Leveraging Next-generation Networks (ATHENA )

NSF Investments

in

Advanced Wireless

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Multiple Dimensions of NSF investments in NextG

RINGS program: Resilient & Intelligent NextG Systems

• ~$42M in 42 projects
• Augments current investments in networking and computing research
• Resilience-motivated designs
• Diverse partnerships
• Ready-to-use city-scale testbeds
• Awards made in summer 2022

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National Science Foundation

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6/22/2021

NSF AI Institute for Future Edge Networks and Distributed Intelligence (AI-EDGE)

• Internship Opportunities
• Industry Supported Research

• DoD Supported Research
• Internship Opportunities

• Shared Staffing
• Institute Supported Research
• Good Systems-led Ethics Training

Support for the datasets

• Currently Available
• A Generic Deep Learning Dataset for Millimeter Wave and Massive MIMO Applications: www.DeepMIMO.net
• A Deep Learning Dataset Framework for Vision-Aided Wireless Communications: www.ViWi-dataset.net
• Cellular Network Information from Smartphones: http://www.mobileinsight.net/
• An Open Testbed for In-Phone Mobile Network Experimentation and Analytics at scale: http://milab.cs.purdue.edu/
• Testing video-streaming algorithms: https://puffer.stanford.edu 
• Facility for experimenting on the future of wireless networking: https://powderwireless.net/ 
• Wireless coverage, throughput, and tower footprint map: https://5gophers.umn.edu 
• Community Resource for Archiving Wireless Data: https://crawdad.org/ 
• RF Dataset of Radar Waveforms: https://doi.org/10.18434/M32116 
• Radar Waveform Simulation Software: https://doi.org/10.18434/M32229 
• Potential Future Datasets
• Massive MIMO
• SOC Operational Data: https://researchsoc.iu.edu/services/data-for-researchers.html 
• Hacker Community Data (from exploit repositories and Deep Web Forums)
• RF physical layer and spectrum datasets using the POWDER platform
• Synthetic or remixed/replayed packet datasets
• Wireless spectrum samples from one rural and two urban locations between 54 MHz - 2.6GHz, at 20 MHz
• Wireless underground sensor network measurements from 3 years in a farm field

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RFDataFactory https://www.rfdatafactory.com

• Platform for accessing and sharing RF-centric datasets, software application programming interfaces and tutorials for collecting and processing data from experimental testbeds and simulations.

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• community resource – contribute, engage and benefit

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• Supported by CISE Community Infrastructure (CCRI) Award #2120447.

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• Welcomes open source contributions and thought leadership from industry partners.
• e.g., NVIDIA, NI, Interdigital and MITRE

SpectrumX: An NSF Spectrum Innovation Center

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• The first national center focused on the transformation of radio spectrum management
• Research new ways to share and manage spectrum – flexible, automated, cloud-based
• Collaboration a hub for researchers, industry, regulators, and others
• Workforce develop the diverse workforce needed for growth
• Maximize the benefits of the radio spectrum for society

• A partnership on multiple levels
• Sponsors: created jointly by NSF, NTIA, FCC
• Participants: 27 institutions (12 minority serving)
• grow into a hub for all stakeholders
• Expertise: convergence across field boundaries
• communications, passive science, sensing, radio technology, policy/economics, data science, control systems
• Launched FY21, federal investment $25m

NSF Resources for AI and Advanced Wireless Research�

https://www.advancedwireless.org

https://fabric-testbed.net/

International Collaboration

• US-Europe (ICE-T) 
• US-Japan (JUNO 2)
• US- Ireland – DCL NSF 20-064
• US- Israel – DCL NSF 20-094
• US- Finland DCL NSF 21-035
• US- France (ANR) DCL 20-120
• US-Brazil
• For others, please check: https://www.nsf.gov/od/oise/IntlCollaborations/index.jsp

Multiple Dimensions of NSF investments in NextG

Thank you!��cns-core@nsf.gov��Program Team:�Alhussein Abouzeid�Murat Torlak�Ann von Lehmen�Deep Medhi�Darleen Fisher���

Questions?��

Platforms for Advanced Wireless Research (PAWR):�Enabling At-scale Experimentation

POWDER

Salt Lake City, UT

Software defined networks and massive MIMO

COSMOS

West Harlem, NY

AERPAW

Raleigh, NC

Millimeter wave and backhaul research

Unmanned aerial vehicles and mobility

ARA

Ames, IA

Rural broadband

$100M public-private partnership with DOD, USDA NIFA, and >35 companies �accelerating beyond-5G wireless research

Colosseum

Colosseum is the world’s largest wireless network emulator with granularity at the RF signal level

• 256 x 256 100 MHz RF channel emulation
• 128 Programmable Radio Nodes
• Computing resources (CPU, GPU, FPGA)
• Access control and scheduling infrastructure
• Supports remote shared access
• Colosseum supports a containerized software environment with full-stack, end-to-end experiments 

northeastern.edu/colosseum

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National Radio Dynamic Zones (NRDZ)

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• Designate limited geographic areas to pilot innovative approaches in test beds
• RFI environmental sensing and waveform analysis (up to 115 GHz and beyond)
• Cognitive machine-to-machine frequency coordination leading to dynamic allocation and improved efficiency
• Bi-directional sharing / win-win
• Wireless testing “in” the zone does not interfere with users of spectrum outside
• Spectrum users “outside” the zone do not interfere with passive users in the zone

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NSF’s TIP new Directorate

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