May 7, 2006
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Virginia Tech News (04/04/06)
Nystrom, Lynn
NSF has awarded a three-year, $450,000 grant to two Virginia Tech researchers to develop the Mobile Ad Hoc Networking Interoperability And Cooperation Challenge (MANIAC) to encourage student interest in wireless networking. The researchers looked at open competitions in software engineering, robotics, and automotive design, and noted that no similar contest exists in wireless networking. "These competitions are very motivating, not to mention fun. Also, failure often teaches us more than success, and implementation is always more convincing than simulation," said Luiz DaSilva, an associate professor of electrical and computer engineering. "The kind of informal exchange of ideas that occurs naturally in a competition like this tends to move research forward in unexpected ways." The contest will pose students with the central challenges of the industry, including the extent to which bandwidth, signal strength, or speed should be compromised to ensure that the system is reliable and effective. DaSilva and Allen MacKenzie, an assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering, expect the contest to produce new networking techniques and algorithms as students send data over ad hoc networks. Entries will be evaluated on speed and efficiency. The 2007 contest will consist of a video and data relay race on the mobile ad hoc network (MANET) where contestants will only be able to deliver traffic with the help of others. The software will also contribute to researchers' body of knowledge about ad hoc networks by monitoring the behavior of nodes and system effectiveness, providing a real testbed in a field long dominated by simulation. "There has recently been some soul searching by the networking community regarding the prevailing use of simulation as the main research methodology," DaSilva said. "This competition will provide researchers with a unique opportunity to study real-life network behavior in the wild."
For the full article see http://www.vtnews.vt.edu/story.php?relyear=2006&itemno=180
Posted by rab5 at 09:47 AM
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