Collaborative Research: Planning: AI-Ready: DHARMA.AI Digital Hardware + Analog-RF for Multifunctional Apertures with AI

This planning project will integrate several existing wireless testbeds that encompass a wide range of radio frequency bands and communication techniques into a cohesive, software-defined virtual platform, offering novel capabilities. The project will create a strategic plan for testbed design, integration and workforce development. The base design of existing testbeds, once integrated, will form preliminary results for a highly scalable community infrastructure. By adapting existing testbeds as a prototype for incorporating AI-driven capabilities, the team expects new competencies to be spawned for US-based academic and industrial partners that build toward the national interests of economic development in emerging 6G and next-generation networking markets. The proposed testbed will integrate wireless testbeds at collaborating institutions into a single ultra-broadband, multifunctional, and uniquely capable platform for emerging experiments under AI control. The overarching goal is enabling cross-level autonomy and cognition in wireless systems. During this project, the team will develop a plan that helps with long-term goals of a unified wireless testbed infrastructure, including creating software and hardware tools necessary to provide a single-stop solution for researchers to deploy and run multi-site experiments, and developing the tools necessary to run AI solutions both within and across individual network layers, and multi-site experiments with real-time data streaming and visualization capabilities. The team will engage in joint development of high-quality workforce development material, mentoring, education, and scientific outreach activities in a manner that benefits everyone interested in science, technology, engineering and mathematics fields with particular focus on AI and wireless systems. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.