The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) journal, IEEE Transaction of Communication, recently published the graduation project of two graduates. 2018 graduates Bojie Lv and Lexiang Huang had their graduation project accepted as a paper in the journal.

Associate Professor Wang Rui from the Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering is the corresponding author. Bojie Lv is the first author and Lexiang Huang is the second author.

Their paper was titled Joint Downlink Scheduling for File Placement and Delivery in Cache-Assisted Wireless Networks with Finite File Lifetime. The downlink file transmission within a finite lifetime is optimized with the assistance of wireless cache nodes. Wireless caching has been the source of much research for wireless communication. Their research showed that a proposed low-complexity algorithm, based on approximated value functions, can significantly reduce resource consumption at the base station. They also found that proactive caching placement can further improve the performance of base stations. The efficient scheduling of resources was vital to investigating the performance of wireless cache nodes.

Bojie Lv and Lexiang Huang started this project in the beginning of their junior year. In order to understand the problem, they self-studied several mathematical tools, including convex optimization and the Markov decision process. This approach ensured that they could master the basis of wireless resource scheduling.

They also further studied the cutting-edge wireless communication theory. Their research covered 5G among other areas, in order to finally complete their modeling of the problem.

In their research, they found that resource scheduling was a complex dynamic programming problem. With the help of Wang Rui, both students evaluated it with the Markov decision process in order to solve the problem through reinforcement learning.

The substantial innovation meant that Bojie Lv and Lexiang Huang wrote 49 pages of replies through the two rounds of peer review to answer the questions of reviewers. Their efforts saw them receive significant praise for their paper.

After graduating last year, Bojie Lv has joined the SUSTech-Harbin Institute of Technology Graduate Joint Admissions Program. Lexiang Huang is completing a PhD at the Pennsylvania State University in the United States.

Part of their initial work was published at the International Conference on Communication (IEEE ICC 2018). Extensions based on the results of the paper were then published at the Global Communications Conference (IEEE Globecom 2018).

Wang Rui’s research group have also published research results in top wireless communications journals such as IEEE Transactions on Wireless Communications, IEEE Transactions on Networking, and IEEE Transactions on Vehicular Technology. They have partnered with universities such as the University of Hong Kong, University of Science and Technology of China and Beihang University.