ARRC Seminar Series - Dr. Dario Pompili

Title:

Reliable Underwater Acoustic Video Transmission Towards Human-Robot Dynamic Interaction

Abstract:

In the past decade underwater communications have enabled a wide range of applications; there are, however, novel underwater monitoring applications and systems based on human-robot dynamic interaction that require real-time multimedia acquisition and classification. Remotely Operated Vehicles (ROVs) are key instruments to support such interactive applications as they can capture multimedia data from places where humans cannot easily/safely go; however, underwater vehicles are often tethered to the supporting ship by a fiber cable or have to rise periodically to the surface to communicate with a remote station via Radio Frequency (RF) waves, which constrains the mission. Wireless acoustic communication is the typical physical-layer technology for underwater communication; however, video transmissions via acoustic waves are hard to accomplish as the acoustic waves suffer from attenuation, limited bandwidth, Doppler spreading, high propagation delay, high bit error rate, and time-varying channel. For these reasons, state-of-the-art acoustic communication solutions are still mostly focusing on enabling delay-tolerant, low-bandwidth/low-data-rate scalar data transmission or at best low-quality/low-resolution multimedia streaming in the order of few tens of Kbps. This talk focuses on: (1) Novel communication solutions for robust, reliable, and high-data rate underwater multimedia streaming in the order of hundreds of Kbps; (2) Integration of communication methods on a software-defined testbed architecture exploiting MEMS-based Acoustic Vector Sensors (AVSs) to enable processing-intensive physical-layer functionalities as software-defined, but executed in hardware that can be reconfigured in real time by the user based on Quality of Experience (QoE).

Bio:

Dr. Dario Pompili in an associate professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) at Rutgers University, NJ, where he directs the Cyber-Physical Systems Laboratory (CPS Lab), which focuses on mobile computing, wireless communications/networking, underwater acoustic communications, and sensor networks/IoTs. He received a PhD degree in ECE from the Georgia Institute of Technology in 2007, where he worked in the Broadband Wireless Networking Laboratory directed by Dr. Akyildiz. He had previously received a “Laurea” (combined BS/MS) and Doctorate degrees in Telecommunications and Systems Engineering from the University of Rome “La Sapienza,” Italy, in 2001 and 2004, respectively. In 2011, Dr. Pompili received the NSF CAREER award to design efficient communication solutions for underwater multimedia applications. In 2012, he received the ONR Young Investigator Program (YIP) award, one out of 26 awarded nationwide, to develop an uncertainty-aware autonomic mobile computing grid framework as well as the DARPA Young Faculty Award (YFA), one out of 51 awarded nationwide, to enable real-time information processing based on compute-intensive models for operational neuroscience. In 2015, he was nominated Rutgers–New Brunswick Chancellor’s Scholar. In terms of scholar impact, he is Top Cited Author for “Underwater Acoustic Sensor Networks: Research Challenges,” Ad Hoc Networks (Elsevier), vol. 3, no. 3, pp. 257-279, March’05 (Scopus citations in ‘05-‘10); and Most Cited Ad Hoc Networks Author for “Three-dimensional and Two-dimensional Deployment Analysis for Underwater Acoustic Sensor Networks,” Ad Hoc Networks (Elsevier), vol. 7, no. 4, pp. 778-790, June’09 (Scopus citations since ‘09). He won Best Demo Award with “Towards Reconfigurable Cyber Physical Systems” at IEEE MASS’14. He won the 2016 Googol T-ASE Best Applications Paper Award (received at IEEE CASE’16). He won Best Paper Awards at IEEE MASS’17, IEEE/IFIP WONS’17, and HiPC’12; and Best Paper Runner-Up at WUWNet’15. Dr. Pompili published more than 150 refereed scholar publications: with more than 13,000 citations, he has an h-index of 44 and an i10-index of 111 (Google Scholar, Nov’21). He is a Fellow of the IEEE (2021) and a Distinguished Member of the ACM (2019). He is currently serving as Associate Editor for IEEE Transactions on Mobile Computing (TMC) and Area Chair for IEEE INFOCOM.