Zhenghao Zhang, Full Professor in the FSU Department of Computer Science, has been awarded a new NSF grant of $550,000 for research on low latency satellite communication. This is the fifth grant awarded to Zhang’s continuous effort in advancing the state-of-the-art technologies for wireless communications and networking, bringing his total federal funding to more than $2 million.
Zhang’s project, titled as “Low Latency Uplink Communications in Low Earth Orbit (LEO) Satellite Networks with Chirp Permutation Multiple Access (CPMA)””, develops a novel wireless communication technology for Low-Earth-Orbit (LEO) satellite networks that can achieve minimum communication latency on the uplink from the user terminals to the satellite. The new technology will enable applications that are highly sensitive to latency, such as automatic driving and gaming, by reducing the latency to the one-way propagation delay from the user terminal to the satellite, because the user terminals are allowed to transmit packets at any time without coordinating with each other or waiting for decisions on resource allocations. This project advances the knowledge and understanding on grant-free communications in wireless networks. Results from this project will be integrated into classroom activities as course projects for student education and training. Undergraduate students and students from underrepresented and minority groups will be actively recruited.