Professor wins CAREER award to end wireless dead zones
Debashri Roy, an assistant professor in the Computer Science and Engineering Department at The University of Texas at Arlington, received a Faculty Early Career Development Program award from the National Science Foundation to advance her research and education initiatives.
The award, known as CAREER, is the NSF’s highest honor for junior faculty. Recipients are recognized as outstanding researchers who will become leaders in educational excellence and in the integration of education and research at their home institutions.
The $648,094 grant will enable Dr. Roy to develop a framework that will keep wireless network quality from degrading as devices move.
“I want to integrate the physical environment with the wireless network by using existing sensors to create a system where the network predicts users’ intent to maintain quality,” Roy said.
As devices such as phones, drones or vehicles move, quality degrades until the wireless network they are connected to receives feedback from the device and adjusts to provide the best quality. The network is reactive, not making any changes until prompted by the device. Roy hopes to use existing environmental sensors such as cameras and LiDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) to make networks proactive, so they anticipate a device’s needs and adjust before quality degrades.
Related: UTA professor earns NSF CAREER award
“If we already have sensors in place, we can capture a user’s intent to move or change and give that information to the network so the network can proactively adapt to that change,” Roy explained.
The network would not identify particular users but rather recognize that a device is moving through networks, lessening privacy concerns.
“Dr. Roy’s first grant as a primary investigator is a good one,” said Hong Jiang, chair of the Computer Science and Engineering Department. “Maintaining signal quality in mobile networks is important in an increasingly connected society, so her research has potential for widespread adoption.”
Roy joined UTA in 2023 after spending three years as an associate research scientist at Northeastern University. Her research interests include wireless networks, wireless systems, multimodal fusion, digital twins for wireless systems and networked robotics.
About The University of Texas at Arlington (UTA)
The University of Texas at Arlington is a growing public research university in the heart of Dallas-Fort Worth. With a student body of over 42,700, UTA is the second-largest institution in the University of Texas System, offering more than 180 undergraduate and graduate degree programs. Recognized as a Carnegie R-1 university, UTA stands among the nation’s top 5% of institutions for research activity. UTA and its 300,000 alumni generate an annual economic impact of $28.8 billion for the state. The University has received the Innovation and Economic Prosperity designation from the Association of Public and Land Grant Universities and has earned recognition for its focus on student access and success, considered key drivers to economic growth and social progress for North Texas and beyond.