Impact on society beyond science and technology:
- This project targets to impact spectrum policy and the FCC.
Impact on knowledge and technique:
- We developed an automatic detection system, termed LeakyTrack, which can extract this information directly from measured spectra, in order to obtain information about client motion, as well as the size and motion of objects causing transient blockage of the line-of-sight beam.
- Our work starts the discussion on asymmetric link budget for different emitting angles when a leaky-wave antenna is employed, which leads to a new design space for THz communication systems.
- Our work is the first study of the use of leaky-wave antennas (LWAs) as transmitter elements in a terahertz network (also as receiver elements). This device architecture has been known for some time, but it has never previously been considered in the context of multi-user LANs. We have validated that LWAs with broadband transceivers can be used to harvest the sort of link discovery information that will be critical for control-plane functions in future THz networks. More broadly, our studies have pushed the conversation forward – it’s no longer just about hardware, but rather is about the implications of hardware operation for control-plane functionality (and visa versa). This is a critical development in the maturation of THz systems.
- Our work represents the first study of link security in terahertz networks. The topic didn’t exist until our initial publication in Nature in late 2018. The funded research has focused on the implications for security and eavesdropping of using a leaky wave device as a transmitter in a THz LAN; however, the results are much more general than their implications for this specific type of antenna, since any ultra-broad-band transmitter will inevitably exhibit some diffractive nature to the emission. This will inevitably result in a strong (and probably nonlinear) coupling between frequency and emission angle. Our work will therefore inform the development of any future wireless network in which large bandwidths (tens of GHz) are employed for directional broadcasts.
- Our project will realize a first-of-its-kind multi-face leaky waveguide WLAN architecture.
Impact on technology transfer:
- This project will impact industry through demonstration of results coupled with the PIs’ extensive collaborative industry network.
Impact on the development of human resources:
- In the past year, several PhD students have participated in the research including Yasith Amarasinghe, Rabi Shrestha (graduated in 2022), Yaseman Shiri, and Zhaoji Fang at Brown, Zhambyl Shaikhanov, Vinicius Da Silva Goncalves, Fahid Hassan, Zhecun Liu, Tarence Rice and Furqan Ahmad at Rice.
- In year 2, several PhD students have participated in the research including (Yasith Amarasinghe at Brown, Chia-Yi Yeh, Shreya Gupta, Keerthi Dasala, Zhambyl Shaikhanov, Vinicius Da Silva Goncalves, Fahid Hassan, Zhecun Liu, Tarence Rice and Furqan Ahmad at Rice) continue to work on various aspects of the research
- In year 1, several PhD students and undergraduates have participated in the research. One undergraduate researcher, Aaron Charous (from Brown University), was a co-author on the Nature Communications paper, and is now in graduate school at MIT. Meanwhile, one of the PhD students involved, Yasaman Ghasempour (from Knightly’s group at Rice), has successfully defended her PhD (a significant fraction of which was devoted to the results described here), and plans to start in a new position as an Assistant Professor at Princeton University in January 2021. Other PhD students (Yasith Amarasinghe at Brown, Chia-Yi Yeh at Rice) continue to work on various aspects of the research.
- Finally, the project includes a plan for broadening participation in computing via internships, visiting students, and Ph.D. positions for students from under-represented groups, as well as community outreach via an on-going partnership with Technology For All. This summer we have broadened participation in computing via summer internships at Rice University for underrepresented groups including Michael Angino, Helena Hu, and Nikhita Gangla, Rice undergraduates and Jelena Lalić, an undergraduate at University of Belgrade.