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Computing Nonlinear Functions over Communication Networks

Project description

Rethinking how networks compute

Modern life depends on networks that move vast amounts of data as smart devices and cars send information across these systems. However, as networks grow, simple transmission is not enough. Engineers are searching for ways to increase data streams without wasting energy. The ERC-funded SENSIBILITÉ project proposes a theory for distributed computation, where networks jointly encode and decode data to compute nonlinear functions directly, bypassing classical communication limits. The project’s goal is to make network-driven computation practical. Its framework will be tested on high-impact applications, including over-the-air IoT computing, massive data compression in imaging, and real-time holographic communications.

Objective

SENSIBILITÉ describes a novel theory for distributed computing of nonlinear functions over communication networks. Motivated by the long-lasting open challenge to invent technologies that scale with the network size, this intriguing and far-reaching theory elevates distributed encoding and joint decoding of information sources, to the critical network computing problem for a class of network topologies and a class of nonlinear functions of dependent sources. Our theory will elevate distributed communication to the realm of distributed computation of any function over any network.

Overall, this problem requires communicating correlated messages over a network, coding distributed sources for computation of functions, and meeting the desired fidelity given a distortion criterion for the given function. In such a scenario, the classical separation theorem of Claude Shannon, which modularizes the design of source and channel codes to achieve the capacity of communication channels, is in general inapplicable.

SENSIBILITÉ envisions a networked computation framework for nonlinear functions. It will use the structural information of the sources and the decomposition of nonlinear functions for efficient distributed compression algorithms. For scalability, it will design message sets that are oblivious to the protocol information. For parsimonious representations across networks, it will grip the curious trade-off between quantization and compression of functions. SENSIBILITÉ has a contemporary vision of network-driven functional compression via accounting for the description length and time complexities towards alleviating large-scale, real-world networks of the future. The advanced theory will be tested in a real-life setting on applications of grand societal impact, such as over-the-air computing for the internet-of-things, massive data compression for computational imaging, and zero-error computation for real-time holographic communications.

Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)

Keywords

Programme(s)

Topic(s)

Funding Scheme

HORIZON-ERC - HORIZON ERC Grants

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Call for proposal

(opens in new window) ERC-2022-STG

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Host institution

EURECOM GIE
Net EU contribution
€ 1 499 061,00
Address
ROUTE DES CHAPPES 450 CAMPUS SOPHIA ANTIPOLIS
06410 Biot
France
Region
Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur Alpes-Maritimes
Activity type
Higher or Secondary Education Establishments
Links
Total cost
€ 1 499 061,25

Beneficiaries (1)