IUCRC Planning Grant Virginia Tech: Center for Wireless Innovation towards Secure, Pervasive, Efficient and Resilient Next G Networks (WISPER)

The proposed Center for Wireless Innovation towards Secure, Pervasive, Efficient, and Resilient Next Generation Networks (WISPER) will coordinate academia, industry, and government to pioneer transformative next generation (NextG) wireless technologies for key industry verticals. Our missions include: (1) growing the U.S. innovation capacity in the next-generation wireless networks; (2) catalyzing breakthrough pre-competitive research for enabling NextG wireless communications; (3) contributing to the emerging North American vision for the next generation wireless networks; (4) providing guidance to standardization bodies and cooperation partners; and (5) producing a workforce prepared to tackle complex next-generation wireless challenges.

The Virginia Tech WISPER team will drive research and innovation into NextG systems by defining problems and solutions that yield immediate and forward-looking impact. The team will explore a range of potential research directions into NextG systems that span security, network autonomy and intelligence, and new and coming technologies, such as non-terrestrial networking, joint communication and sensing, and quantum networking.

The team will seek to showcase its NextG use cases through open and secure NextG and AI platforms and apply the project-based learning model to define workforce development programs at the intersection of NextG systems, autonomy, and security.

The proposed WISPER Center will contribute significantly to the country's future communication infrastructure, with broader impacts on diversity and inclusion, workforce development, and technology transfer. A Diversity & Inclusion Committee will be formed to review the current diversity and inclusion profile and develop specific measures and plans for inspiring the participation of underrepresented groups.

WISPER will prepare students to become proficient in NextG techniques, leading to transformative changes in the state of wireless workforce preparedness. WISPER will enable seamless integration of the center's new discoveries into NextG wireless systems, accelerating technology transfer, enhancing the competence of the industrial members, and contributing to the Nation’s leadership in NextG technologies.

All data, software, and artifacts produced in this project will be archived and preserved, according to standard institutional security and privacy practices and policies, for at least five years.

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.