Flexible and semantically guided robust resource management

Lead PI: Xinyu Zhang

This thrust will focus on networking heterogeneous devices in tactical and strategic environments where links are dynamic, noisy, intermittent, and vulnerable to adversarial disruption. The research will develop adaptive methods for allocating bandwidth, computation, and network functions across heterogeneous entities while ensuring that critical command-and-control information is delivered efficiently and robustly. Rather than relying on strict bit-level correctness, the effort emphasizes communication approaches that preserve the meaning of information, reducing wasted resources and improving performance under difficult network conditions. It also seeks to strengthen resilience against failures and network partitions so that the system can continue operating effectively in contested and rapidly changing settings. 

To achieve this, the thrust will create mechanisms for assigning communication and computation resources based on mission relevance, channel conditions, and node capabilities, so that more critical entities receive greater support and processing tasks are placed where they can be performed most effectively. It will also develop a semantics-aware networking framework in which flows are treated according to the meaning they convey, enabling receivers to recover and interpret information even when transmissions are incomplete or degraded. In parallel, the research will design built-in resilience through careful replication and placement of data and processing services, ensuring access to essential information during disruptions while minimizing overhead and limiting the need for service migration as nodes move throughout the deployment environment.